1699 in literature

Events

• January 27 – Jonathan Swift is out of work after his employer, Sir William Temple, dies, leaving Swift £100.
• May 4 – The beginning of the fictional Gulliver's Travels (1726).
• June 1 – Joseph Addison receives a grant or pension from the Crown, enabling him to travel abroad.

New books

Prose

• Richard Bentley – A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris (prev. pub. in William Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning)
• Samuel Clarke
  • Some Reflections on that part of a book called Amyntor, or a Defence of Milton's Life, which relates to the Writings of the Primitive Fathers, and the Canon of the New Testament
  • Three Practical Essays on Baptism, Confirmation and Repentance
• Jeremy Collier – A Defence of the Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage (see 1698 in literature)
• Anne Dacier (Anne Lefèvre) – Homer's Iliad (prose, first translation into French)
• William Dampier – Voyages and Descriptions (vol. ii)
• John Dunton – The Dublin Scuffle
• George Farquhar – The Adventures of Covent-Garden
• François Fénelon (anonymously) – Les Aventures de Télémaque ("The Adventures of Telemachus")
• Samuel Garth – The Dispensary (satire by one of Pope's mentors)
• John Hughes – The Court of Neptune
• George Keith – The Deism of William Penn, and his Brethren
• William King
  • Dialogues of the Dead (in support of Charles Boyle)
  • The Furmetary
  • A Journey to London
• Gerard Langbaine – The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (cont. by Charles Gildon)
• Roger L'Estrange – Fables and Storyes Moralized
• John Locke – Mr Locke's Reply to the Right Revered the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter (see 1697 in literature)
• Cornelius Nary – The Chief Points in Controversy between the Catholics and the Protestants
• Frances Norton – Reliquae Gethinianae
• John Oldmixon – Reflections on the Stage, and Mr Collier's Defence of the Short View
• Nicolas Steno (Niels Stenson) – De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus (Preliminary Discourse to a Dissertation on a Solid Body Naturally Contained within a Solid)
• William Temple – Letters Written by Sir William Temple During his Being Ambassador at The Hague (edited initially by Jonathan Swift)
• John Toland
  • The Life of John Milton
  • Amyntor; or, A Defence of Milton's Life
• Thomas Traherne – A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God
• William Wake – The Principles of the Christian Religion Explained
• Ned Ward – A Trip to New-England
• James Wright – Historia Histrionica

Poetry

• Thomas Brown – A Collection of Miscellany Poems, Letters, etc.
• Thomas D'Urfey – A Choice Collection of New Songs and Ballads
• John Pomfret – The Choice
• Nahum Tate – Elegies

Drama

• Abel Boyer – Achilles, or Iphegenia in Aulis
• Colley Cibber – Xerxes
• John Dennis – Rinaldo and Armida
• George Farquhar – The Constant Couple
• Charles Gildon – Measure for Measure, or Beauty the Best Advocate (a re-adaptation of Davenant's 1662 adaptation The Law Against Lovers)
• Joseph Harris – Love's a Lottery, and a Woman the Prize
• Charles Hopkins – Friendship Improved
• Peter Anthony Motteux – The Island Princess; or, The Generous Portuguese (opera, adapted from John Fletcher)
• Mary Pix – The False Friend

Births

• April 17 – Robert Blair, Scottish poet (died 1746)
• April 28 – Joseph Spence, English literary historian (died 1768)
• June 26 – Madame Geoffrin, French salonnière (died 1777)
• August 13 (bapt.) – John Dyer, Welsh poet (died 1757)
• December 29 – Friedrich Ludwig Abresch, German-born Dutch philologist (died 1782)

Deaths

• January 21 – Obadiah Walker, English religious writer and controversialist (born 1616)
• January 27 – Sir William Temple, English statesman and essayist (born 1628)
• March 24 – John Evelyn the Younger, English translator (born 1655)
• March 27 – Edward Stillingfleet, English theologian (born 1635)
• April 21 – Jean Racine, French dramatist (born 1639)
• April 22
  • Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz, German statesman and poet (born 1646)
  • Lady Anne Halkett, English memoirist (born 1623)
• November 23 – Joseph Beaumont, English clergyman, academic and poet (born 1616)
• December 16 – Erhard Weigel, German philosopher and mathematician (born 1625)

References

References

1. David Oakleaf. (6 October 2015). "A Political Biography of Jonathan Swift". Routledge.
2. Joseph Addison. (1873). "The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison: Letters. Second appendix, containing miscellanies and gleanings.". H.G. Bohn.
3. (2010). "The History of British Women's Writing, 1690–1750: Volume Four". Springer.
4. John Sayer. (2006). "Jean Racine: Life and Legend". Peter Lang.