1713 in literature

Events

• March 12 – Richard Steele and Joseph Addison found the short-lived The Guardian; in the same year, Steele founds another periodical, ostensibly as a sequel to it, the likewise short-lived The Englishman.
• April 14 – The first performance is given in London of Addison's libertarian play Cato, a Tragedy, which will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic.
• October – Alexander Pope announces that he is to begin a definitive translation of the works of Homer.
• unknown date – Vitsentzos Kornaros's early 17th-century Cretan romantic epic poem Erotokritos (Ἐρωτόκριτος), is printed, for the first time, in Venice.

New books

Prose

• John Arbuthnot – Proposals for printing a very curious discourse... a treatise of the art of political lying, with an abstract of the first volume ("The Art of Political Lying")
• Jane Barker – The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia
• Richard Bentley (as Phileleutherus Lipsiensis) – Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-thinking (see Collins below)
• George Berkeley – Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
• Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux – Dialogue sur les héros de roman
• Robert Challe – Les Illustres Françaises (The Illustrious French Lovers)
• Anthony Collins – A Discourse of Free-thinking
• Daniel Defoe
  • And What if the Pretender Should Come?
  • A General History of Trade
  • Reasons Against the Succession of the House of Hanover
• John Dennis – Remarks upon Cato
• Abel Evans – Vertumnus
• John Gay
  • Rural Sports
  • The Fan
• Edmund Gibson – Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani
• Antoine Hamilton – Mémoires du comte de Gramont (published anonymously)
• John Hughes – Letters of Abelard and Heloise (widely published translation)
• Henri Joutel – Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de La Sale fit dans le golfe de Mexique (Joutel's journal of La Salle's last voyage, 1684–1687)
• Thomas Parnell – An Essay on the Different Stiles of Poetry
• Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre – Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe
• Jonathan Swift
  • Mr. C--n's Discourse of Free-thinking, Put into Plain English (see above, Collins)
  • Part of the Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
• John Toland – Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland
• Ned Ward – The History of the Grand Rebellion

Drama

• Anonymous – The Apparition
• Joseph Addison – Cato, a Tragedy
• José de Cañizares – Don Juan de Espina en Milán
• John Gay – The Wife of Bath
• Charles Shadwell – The Merry Wives of Broad Street
• William Taverner – The Female Advocates

Poetry

• Henry Carey – Poems on Several Occasions (includes "Sally in Our Alley" and "Namby Pamby")
• Anne Finch – Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions
• Alexander Pope
  • Windsor Forest
  • Ode for Musick
• Edward Young
  • An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne
  • A Poem on the Last Day See also 1713 in poetry

Births

• January 13 – Charlotte Charke (Charlotte Cibber), English novelist, dramatist and actress (died 1760)
• February 20 – Anna Maria Elvia, Swedish poet (died 1784)
• April 12 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer (died 1796)
• June 11 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (died 1781)
• July 9 – John Newbery, English publisher and writer for children (died 1767)
• October 5 – Denis Diderot, French encyclopedist (died 1784)
• October 25 – Marie Jeanne Riccoboni (née de Mézières), French novelist and actress (died 1792)
• November 24 – Laurence Sterne, Irish-born novelist and cleric (died 1768)
• December 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classicist and critic (died 1785)

Deaths

• January 5 – Jean Chardin, French travel writer (born 1643)
• January 11 – Pierre Jurieu, French Protestant leader and religious writer (born 1637)
• May 20 – Thomas Sprat, English writer, poet and bishop (born 1635)
• September 11 – Johannes Voet, Dutch jurist and legal writer (born 1647)
• September 18 – Samuel Cobb, English poet and critic (born 1675)
• October 20 – Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician and writer (born 1652)
• October 30 – John Barret, English religious writer and Presbyterian minister (born 1631)
• December 14 – Thomas Rymer, English Historiographer Royal (born 1641)

Notes

References

1. Mary Beth Harris. "Gale Researcher Guide for: Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and the Rise of the Periodical Genre". Gale, Cengage Learning.
2. Litto, Fredric M.. (1966). "Addison's Cato in the Colonies". [[William and Mary Quarterly]].
3. Alexander Pope. (1871). "The Works of Alexander Pope: New Ed. Including Several Hundred Unpublished Letters, and Other New Materials, Collected in Part by John Wilson Croker. With Introd. and Notes by Whitwell Elwin". J. Murray.
4. Hughes, John. (1360 ). "Letters of Abelard and Heloise". James Rivington and J Fletcher, P Davey and B Law, T Lowdes and T Caslon.
5. Macintyre, I. (2014). "Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713)". The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
6. (1869). "The Westminster Review". J.M. Mason.