1745 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1745. Events February – London theatres stage competing productions of Shakespeare's King John in response to the Jacobite rising begun this summer by Bonnie Prince Charlie. David Garrick's production of the original text at Drury Lane contrasts with Colley Cibber's adaptation Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John at Covent Garden. The rivalry anticipates "the Romeo and Juliet war" of five years later. September 21 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock delivers a speech on epic poetry – Abschiedsrede über die epische Poesie, kultur- und literargeschichtlich erläutert – to mark his leaving school. October 19 – Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, dies aged 78. His body is laid out in public for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, and he is buried, in accordance with his wishes, in his cathedral by Esther Johnson's side, with his own epitaph: Ubi sæva Indignatio/Ulterius/Cor lacerare nequit ("Where savage indignation can no longer lacerate the heart"). November 17 – In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg of the Moravian Church asks innkeeper Samuel Powell to begin importing and distributing books, the origins of a bookstore still in existence in 2007. New books Prose Mark Akenside – Odes Elizabeth Boyd – The Snail: Or the Lady's Lucubrations (periodical – one vol. only published) John Brown – An Essay on Satire, occasion'd by the death of Mr. Pope Comte de Caylus – Cinq contes de fées (Five Fairy Tales) John Gilbert Cooper – The Power of Harmony Philip Doddridge – The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul Henry Fielding A Serious Address to the People of Great Britain (on the Jacobite rebellion) The True Patriot (periodical) Enrique Flórez – Mapa de todos los sitios de batallas que tuvieron los romanos en España Samuel Johnson Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth Proposals for Printing a New Edition of the Plays of William Shakespear Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc – Lettres d'un François (Letters on the English and French Nations) Samuel Madden – Boulter's Monument Pierre de Marivaux – La Vie de Marianne (The Life of Marianne; last published section of unfinished novel) Moses Mendes – Henry and Blanche (trans.