1705 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1705. Events April/May – Richard Steele, having left the army, marries a wealthy widow, Margaret Stretch. July 29 – Richard Challoner enters the English College, Douai. October 7 – William Somervile inherits his father's estate, where field sports will inspire much of his poetry. October 30 – John Vanbrugh's play The Confederacy, adapted from the French, is first performed at his new London playhouse, The Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. December 27 – John Vanbrugh's play The Mistake is likewise adapted from the French and first performed at The Queen's Theatre. unknown dates George Hickes' Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archæologicus vol. 2 (published in Oxford) includes the first published reference to Beowulf and the single surviving transcript of the Finnesburg Fragment. Chikamatsu Monzaemon (近松門左衛門) almost abandons writing kabuki plays and becomes a staff writer to the bunraku theatre in Osaka. Claude Pierre Goujet, religious historian and Jansenist, enters holy orders. William Walsh begins a correspondence with Alexander Pope. Work begins on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, designed by the playwright John Vanbrugh for the Duke of Marlborough. New books Prose Joseph Addison – Remarks on Several Parts of Italy Mary Astell – The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church Dimitrie Cantemir – Historia Hieroglyphica (the first novel to use the Romanian language) George Cheyne – Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion (deist) Samuel Clarke – A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God Mary Davys – The Fugitive Daniel Defoe The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born Englishman John Dunton – The Life and Errors of John Dunton Late Citizen of London (humor) Edmund Gibson – Family-Devotion Charles Gildon – The Deist's Manual Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier – La Tour ténébreuse, et les jours lumineux: contes anglois Bernard de Mandeville – The Grumbling Hive (pirated edition) Delarivière Manley – The Secret History, of Queen Zarah, and the Zarazians (roman à clef) John Philips Blenheim The Splendid Shilling Katherine Philips – Letters of Orinda to Poliarchus John Toland – Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church