1764 in literature

This article is a summary of literary events and publications during 1764. Events January 19 – John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel in an article criticizing King George III in The North Briton. February – Samuel Johnson co-founds The Club, a literary dining club in London. June 21 – The Quebec Gazette newspaper begins publication; its successor survives. October 15 – While visiting Rome, Edward Gibbon conceives the idea for The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire "as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter". Gibbon is at the Franciscan Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline Hill, actually the site of the Temple of Juno. October 29 – The Hartford Courant newspaper is founded in Connecticut. December 24 – Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto ("A Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto"), the first Gothic novel, is published by his Strawberry Hill Press in England. unknown dates – The French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy deciphers the Phoenician language using inscriptions on the Cippi of Melqart from Malta. Mme. Necker and Mlle. de Lespinasse establish literary salons in Paris New books Fiction John Cleland – The Surprises of Love Phebe Gibbes The History of Lady Louisa Stroud and the Honorable Miss Caroline Stretton The Life and Adventures of Mr. Francis Clive Susannah Minifie – Family Pictures George Psalmanazar (pseudonym) – Memoirs of ***, Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalamanazar James Ridley (as Sir Charles Morell) – The Tales of the Genii Horace Walpole – The Castle of Otranto