1754 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1754.

Events

 * January 28 – Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity (from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip).
 * March 2 – Riot at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Thomas Sheridan, the manager, resigns, and leaves Ireland on September 15 for London where his wife Frances Sheridan meets Samuel Richardson.
 * Élie Catherine Fréron's journal Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps is replaced by his Année littéraire.

Fiction

 * Jane Collier and Sarah Fielding – The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable
 * Mary Davys – The Reformed Coquet; or Memoirs of Amoranda
 * Henry Fielding – The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (enlarged and expanded from the Miscellanies of 1743)
 * Solomon Gessner – Daphnis
 * Sarah Scott:
 * Agreeable Ugliness
 * A Journey Through Every Stage of Life
 * John Shebbeare – The Marriage Act

Poetry

 * Thomas Cooke – An Ode on Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture
 * John Duncombe – The Feminiad
 * Henry Jones – The Relief
 * William Whitehead – Poems

Non-fiction

 * Anonymous – Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa and Pamela
 * Thomas Birch – Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
 * Charles Bonnet – Essai de psychologie
 * John Gilbert Cooper – Letters Concerning Taste
 * John Douglas – Letter on the Criterion of Miracles
 * John Gillies – Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Period of the Success of the Gospel
 * Zachary Grey – Critical, Historical, and Explanatory Notes on Shakespeare
 * Benjamin Hoadly – Sixteen Sermons
 * David Hume – The History of England (volume 1)
 * William Law – The Second Part of the Spirit of Love
 * Isaac Newton (died 1727) – An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (written 1690)
 * Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Discourse on Inequality
 * Henry St. John – Philosophical Works
 * Jonathan Swift
 * Brotherly Love
 * The Works of Jonathan Swift (the Hawkesworth edition)
 * William Warburton – A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy
 * Thomas Warton – Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser

Drama

 * Samuel Crisp – Virginia
 * David Garrick – Catharine and Petruchio (adapted from The Taming of the Shrew)
 * John Gay – The Rehearsal at Goatham
 * Macnamara Morgan:
 * Philoclea (from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia)
 * The Sheep-Shearing, or Florizel and Perdita (a farce adapted from The Winter's Tale)
 * Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon – Le Triumvirat
 * William Whitehead – Creusa, Queen of Athens

Births

 * March 24 – Joel Barlow, American poet and diplomat (died 1812)
 * May 23 – William Drennan, Irish physician, poet, radical and educationalist (died 1820)
 * July 11 – Thomas Bowdler, English editor (died 1825)
 * August 2 – Lady Charlotte Murray, English writer and botanist (died 1808)
 * October 13 – Frances Jacson, English novelist (died 1842)
 * December 24 – George Crabbe, English poet (died 1832)
 * unknown date – John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter (died 1844)

Deaths

 * January 11 – Wu Jingzi, Chinese scholar and novelist (born 1701)
 * January 28 – Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian philosopher, historian and playwright (born 1684)
 * April 2 – Thomas Carte, English historian (born 1686)
 * April 9 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher (born 1679)
 * October 8 – Henry Fielding English novelist (born 1707)
 * November 12 – Robert Morris, English architect and writer on architecture (born 1703)