1774 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1774.

Events

 * February 22 – The English legal case of Donaldson v Beckett is decided in the House of Lords, denying the continued existence of a perpetual common law copyright and holding that copyright is a creation of statute and can be limited in its duration. This does permit authors to claim copyright on their own works.
 * September 14 – A new Stadsschouwburg (municipal theatre) in Amsterdam opens with the première of Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken's tragedy Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk.
 * September 29 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's semi-autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) (written January – March) is published anonymously in Leipzig, Germany; it is influential in the Sturm und Drang movement and Romanticism.
 * unknown dates
 * After the destruction of the Schloss Weimar by fire, Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, forms a commission for its reconstruction directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
 * James Lackington begins in the London bookselling business.
 * Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider becomes secretary to Richard François Philippe Brunck.
 * The National and University Library of Slovenia in Ljubljana is established as the Lyceum Library, from the remains of the dissolved Jesuit library and several monastery libraries.
 * Alberto Fortis publishes Viaggio in Dalmazia ("Journey to Dalmatia") and starts Morlachism.

Fiction

 * Jeremy Bentham – The White Bull
 * Henry Brooke – Juliet Grenville
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – The Sorrows of Young Werther
 * Charles Johnstone – The History of Arsaces
 * The Newgate Calendar
 * Christoph Martin Wieland – Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte (The Abderites: A Very Probable Story)

Children

 * Johann Bernhard Basedow – Elementarwerk (first of four volumes)

Drama

 * Miles Peter Andrews – The Election
 * John Burgoyne – The Maid of the Oaks
 * George Colman the Elder – The Man of Business
 * Richard Cumberland
 * The Choleric Man
 * The Note of Hand
 * Charles Dibdin – The Waterman
 * Alexander Dow – Sethona
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Clavigo
 * Hugh Kelly – The Romance of an Hour
 * Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz – The Tutor (Der Hofmeister)
 * Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – El delincuente honrado

Poetry

 * James Beattie – The Minstrel, volume 2
 * William Dunkin – Poetical Works
 * Oliver Goldsmith – Retaliation
 * Richard Graves – The Progress of Gallantry
 * William Mason – An Heroic Postscript to the Public
 * Hannah More – The Inflexible Captive
 * Samuel Jackson Pratt (as Courtney Melmoth) – The Tears of A Genius, occasioned by the Death of Dr. Goldsmith
 * Henry James Pye – Farringdon Hill
 * Mary Scott – The Female Advocate
 * Candido Maria Trigueros – El poeta filósofo o Poesías filosóficas en verso pentámetro
 * William Whitehead – Plays and Poems, by William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat

Non-fiction

 * Giacomo Casanova – Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia
 * Mary Deverell – Sermons
 * Alberto Fortis – Viaggio in Dalmazia
 * Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
 * Oliver Goldsmith
 * The Grecian History
 * An History of the Earth and Animated Nature
 * Henry Home – Sketches of the History of Man
 * John Hutchins (died 1773) – The History and Antiquities of Dorset
 * Thomas Jefferson – A Summary View of the Rights of British America
 * Samuel Johnson – The Patriot
 * Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz – The History of Louisiana, or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina (English translation of Histoire de la Louisiane (1758) in 1 vol.)
 * Joseph Priestley – Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
 * William Richardson – A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters
 * Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes – Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular
 * Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield – Letters to his Son
 * Sugita Genpaku – Kaitai Shinsho (解体新書, "New Text on Anatomy", Japanese translation of Ontleedkundige Tafelen)
 * Horace Walpole – A Description of Strawberry-Hill
 * Thomas Warton – The History of English Poetry, volume 1
 * John Wesley – Thoughts upon Slavery

Births

 * January 1 – Pietro Giordani, Italian translator, scholar and writer (died 1848)
 * February 24 – Archibald Constable, Scottish publisher (died 1827)
 * July 14 – Francis Lathom, Dutch-born English Gothic novelist and dramatist (died 1832)
 * August 12 – Robert Southey, English poet and Poet Laureate (died 1843)

Deaths

 * April 4 – Oliver Goldsmith, Irish dramatist (born 1728/1730)
 * April 28 – Gottfried Lengnich, German/Polish historian (born 1689)
 * September 17 – Abraham Langford, English auctioneer and playwright (born 1711)
 * October 16 – Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet (head injury, born 1750)
 * unknown date – Catherine Michelle de Maisonneuve, French editor and writer