1762 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1762. Events April 27 – Rev. Hugh Blair is appointed first Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh by King George III, the first such chair in English literature. June 19 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract (Du Contrat social, ou Principes du droit politique) and Emile, or On Education (Émile, ou De l’éducation), recently published in Amsterdam and The Hague respectively, are publicly burned in Paris. They are also prohibited in Rousseau's native Republic of Geneva. June 20 – In Paris, the Comédie-Italienne, having merged with the Opéra-Comique, performs at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. The Sorbonne library is founded. The Académie française produces a new edition of its dictionary of the French language, the fourth to be published. Benjamin Victor's adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (with expanded roles for the clown Launce and his dog) is staged by David Garrick at Drury Lane, and runs for five nights. It is the earliest known performance of that Shakespearean play in any form. Christoph Martin Wieland begins publishing his prose translations of 22 Shakespearean plays, the first translations of them into German (in 8 volumes, through 1766). New books Fiction John Cleland (attributed) – The Romance of a Night Oliver Goldsmith – The Citizen of the World Charles Johnstone – The Reverie John Langhorne – Solyman and Almena Thomas Leland – Longsword, Earl of Salisbury: An Historical Romance Charlotte Lennox – Sophia Sarah Scott – Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent Tobias Smollett – The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (vols. v–vi)