1719 in literature

Events

• March 14 – Richard Steele launches The Plebeian, in opposition to government policy on peerages.
• April 23–25 – Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe is published in London as his first work of fiction, written aged about 60. The initial title is The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. Defoe's anonymity is broken in September by Charles Gildon in The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Mr D— De D—, of London, Hosier. By the end of the year the book has run through four editions. Defoe's sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, competes with several imitators.
• October 30 – Defoe launches a periodical, The Manufacturer.
• unknown dates
• *The widow of the dramatist Nicholas Rowe receives a pension from King George I of Great Britain for her husband's translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, published complete, posthumously, in this year.
• *Richard Steele launches a periodical, The Plebeian.

  New books

Prose

• Anonymous – Zulima
• Joseph Addison
• *Maxims, Observations, and Reflections
• *Notes upon the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost
• *The Old Whig I
• *The Old Whig II
• John Durant Breval – Ovid in Masquerade
• Daniel Defoe
• *Robinson Crusoe
• *The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
• *The King of Pirates
• Jean-Baptiste Dubos – Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture
• Charles Gildon – The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Mr. D—DeF--, of London, Hosier
• Eliza Haywood – Love in Excess; Or, The Fatal Enquiry vol. 1
• Benjamin Hoadly – The Common Rights of Subjects, Defended
• Giles Jacob – The Poetical Register
• Peter Kolbe – Caput Bonae Spei Hodiernum
• Nicholas Rowe – Lucan's Pharsalia
• Isaac Watts – The Psalms of David
• Georg von Welling – Opus magotheosophicum et cabbalisticum
• Edward Young – A Letter to Mr. Tickell

  Drama

• Anonymous – Heroick Friendship
• Thomas Betterton – The Bond-Man
• Colley Cibber – Ximena
• Matthew Concanen – Wexford Wells
• John Leigh – Kensington Gardens
• Richard Savage – Love in a Veil
• George Sewell – The Tragedy of Sir Walter Raleigh
• Thomas Southerne – The Spartan Dame
• William Taverner – 'Tis Well If It Takes
• Francis Tolson – The Earl of Warwick: Or, British Exile. A Tragedy.
• Edward Young – Busiris

  Poetry

• Matthew Prior – Poems on Several Occasions
• Allan Ramsay – Content
• See also 1719 in poetry

  Births

• January 17 – Johann Elias Schlegel, German critic and dramatic poet
• March 29 – John Hawkins, English writer and biographer
• May 30 – Roger Newdigate, English politician, founder of the Newdigate Prize for poetry
• July 4 – Michel-Jean Sedaine, French dramatist
• July 23 – Frances Boscawen, English diarist and bluestocking
• October 17 – Jacques Cazotte, French fantasy writer
• November 23 – Spranger Barry, Irish-born actor

  Deaths

• January 18 – Samuel Garth, English poet and physician
• April 15 – Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, consort and belle of the French court
• June 17 – Joseph Addison, English journalist and satirist
• July 17 – Elinor James, English pamphleteer
• September 7 – John Harris, English writer
• November 19 – Charles-Claude Genest, French poet and dramatist
• November 26 – John Hudson, English classicist and librarian
• December 2 – Pasquier Quesnel, French theologian
• December 31 – John Flamsteed, English Astronomer Royal