1702 in literature

Events

• March 8 – Accession of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, upon the death of her brother-in-law William III.
• March 11 – The first regular English national newspaper, The Daily Courant, begins publication, in Fleet Street in the City of London. It covers only foreign news.
• October – Jonathan Swift returns to Ireland in the company of Esther Johnson.
• unknown dates
• *Ballet master John Weaver presents the burlesque Tavern Bilkers at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, the first English pantomime. It is not a success.
• *The first book set in the Romain du Roi Roman type, devised for use by the Imprimerie nationale in France: Médailles sur les principaux événements du règne de Louis le Grand, is printed.
• *Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England, is completed to the design of playwright John Vanbrugh and architect Nicholas Hawksmoor.

  New books

Prose

• Louise de Bossigny, comtesse d'Auneuil – La Tiranie des fées détruite
• Thomas Brown, et al. – Letters From the Dead to the Living
• Edmund Calamy – An Abridgement of Mr Baxter's History of His Life and Times
• Daniel Defoe
• *An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity
• *The Mock-Mourners
• *A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty
• *Reformation of Manners
• *The Shortest Way with the Dissenters
• *The Spanish Descent
• John Dennis – The Monument
• Laurence Echard – A General Ecclesiastical History
• George Farquhar – Love and Business
• Edmund Gibson – Synodus Anglicana
• Charles Gildon – A Comparison Between the Two Stages
• Examen Miscellaneum
• Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England
• George Keith – The Standard of the Quakers Examined
• John Kersey – A New English Dictionary; or, a complete collection of the most proper and significant words, commonly used in the language
• Cotton Mather – Magnalia Christi Americana
• Matthew Prior – To a Young Gentleman in Love
• John Toland – Paradoxes of State
• Catherine Trotter Cockburn – A Defence of the Essay of Human Understanding

  Drama

• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Altemira
• Susanna Centlivre – The Beau's Duel
• Colley Cibber – She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not
• John Dennis – The Comical Gallant
• George Farquhar
• *The Inconstant
• *The Twin-Rivals
• Bevil Higgons – The Generous Conqueror
• Nicholas Rowe – Tamerlane
• Sir Charles Sedley – The Tyrant King of Crete

  Poetry

• Matsuo Bashō – Oku no Hosomichi

  Births

• June 26 – Philip Doddridge, English religious and writer and hymnist
• Unknown date – Margareta Momma, Swedish journalist and publisher

  Deaths

• January 1 – Samuel Green, American printer
• January 17 – Roger Morrice, English journalist and diarist
• February 17 – Peder Syv, Danish philologist, folklorist and priest
• April 22 – François Charpentier, French archeologist and writer
• May 17 – Richard Sault, English mathematician, editor and translator
• May 27 – Dominique Bouhours, French literary critic
• November – John Pomfret, English poet