This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1761.
August – Following the death of Johann Matthias Gesner, the chair of rhetoric at the University of Göttingen is refused by both Johann August Ernesti and by David Ruhnken. It eventually goes to Christian Gottlob Heyne.
Playwright Carlo Goldoni moves permanently from Venice to Paris.
John Hawkesworth – Almoran and Hamet
William Kenrick – Eloisa
Thomas Percy (translated) – Hau Kou Choan
James Ridley (as Sir Charles Morrell) – The History of James Lovegrove
Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse
Frances Sheridan – Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph
Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman vols. iii – iv.
Isaac Bickerstaffe – Judith
Henry Brooke – The Earl of Essex (adapted)
George Colman the Elder – The Jealous Wife
Richard Cumberland – The Banishment of Cicero
Richard Glover – Medea
Carlo Goldoni
Una delle ultime sere di Carnevale
La villeggiatura (or La trilogia della villeggiatura, The Resort)
Carlo Gozzi
L'amore delle tre melarance (The Love for Three Oranges)
Il corvo (The Raven)
Arthur Murphy
All in the Wrong
The Citizen
The Old Maid
John Armstrong – A Day: An epistle to John Wilkes
Charles Churchill
The Apology
Night: An epistle to Robert Lloyd
The Rosciad
John Cleland – The Times!, vol. 2
Francis Fawkes – Original Poems and Translations
Edward Jernigham – Andromache to Pyrrhus
Robert Lloyd – An Epistle to Charles Churchill
James Scott – Odes
Edward Thompson – The Meretriciad (a satire on Kitty Fisher, a prostitute)
Diego de Torres Villarroel – Poesías sagradas y profanas
Thomas Cole – Discourses on Luxury, Infidelity, and Enthusiasm
George Colman the Elder – Critical Reflections on the Old English Dramatick Writers
Denis Diderot – Rameau's Nephew
Robert Dodsley – Select Fables of Esop and Other Fabulists (anthology)
Ignacio de la Erbada – Los fantasmas de Madrid y estafermos de la Corte
Enrique Flórez – Memorias de las reinas católicas
Baron d'Holbach – Christianity unveiled
Henry Home – Introduction to the Art of Thinking
David Hume – The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Accession of Henry VII
Joseph Priestley – The Rudiments of English Grammar
Tiphaigne de la Roche – L'Empire des Zaziris sur les humains ou la Zazirocratie
Martín Sarmiento – Noticia sobre la verdadera patria de Cervantes
Benjamin Victor – History of the Theatres of London and Dublin vol. 1–2
May 3 – August von Kotzebue, German dramatist (died 1819)
July 25 – Charlotte von Kalb, German writer (died 1843)
September 8 – François Juste Marie Raynouard, French dramatist (died 1836)
September 13 – Santō Kyōden, born Iwase Samuru, Japanese fiction writer, poet and artist (died 1816)
November 13 – Elizabeth Meeke, English popular novelist (died c.1826)
Unknown date – Mary Pilkington, English novelist, poet and children's writer (died 1839)
April 9 – William Law, English theologian (born 1686)
April 15 – William Oldys, English antiquary and bibliographer (born 1696)
April 17 – Benjamin Hoadly, English bishop and instigator of the Bangorian Controversy (born 1676)
July 4 – Samuel Richardson, English novelist (born 1689)
August 3 – Johann Matthias Gesner, German librarian and classicist (born 1691)
December 15 – Henrietta Louisa Fermor (Countess of Pomfret), English letter writer (year of birth unknown)
1761 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA