1709 in literature

Events

• February 1 or 2 – Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, is rescued from the Juan Fernández Islands, where he was marooned, and begins his return to civilization.
• April 12 – The magazine The Tatler is founded in London by Richard Steele, writing as Isaac Bickerstaff. On July 8 "Mrs. Crackenthorpe" begins publication of The Female Tatler.
• April 26 – An act of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland provides for public libraries in presbyteries.
• May–October 20 – Mrs. Delarivier Manley's roman à clef The New Atalantis is published in London, purporting to be translated from Italian. Its satire of the Whigs is so scurrilous that the author is detained for questioning from October 29 to November 5. It goes through seven editions.
• May 2 – Alexander Pope's career as a poet is launched with the publication of the anthology Poetical Miscellanies, The Sixth Part, edited by John Dryden and published by Jacob Tonson in London.
• June 28 – Historian Gustaf Adlerfelt is killed at the Battle of Poltava; his eyewitness account is continued by his son.
• unknown dates
• *The Works of Mr William Shakespear edited by dramatist Nicholas Rowe appears. It is the first modern edition of Shakespeare's plays, including scene divisions, dramatis personæ and a prefatory account of Shakespeare's life, the first substantial biography of him. An unauthorised seventh volume, including Shakespeare's poems, is perhaps edited by Charles Gildon.
• *Ælfric of Eynsham's An English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-day of St. Gregory is translated from Old English by Elizabeth Elstob.
• *Anthim the Iberian, Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia, establishes the first Georgian printing press in Tbilisi.

  New books

Prose

• Abbé Olivier – Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Signor Rozelli
• Mary Astell – Bart'lemy Fair
• Thomas Baker – Reflections on Learning, showing the Insufficiency thereof in its several particulars, in order to evince the usefulness and necessity of Revelation, vol. 1
• George Berkeley – An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
• Richard Blackmore – Instructions to Vander Beck
• Samuel Cobb – The Female Reign
• Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury – Sensus Communis
• Daniel Defoe – The History of the Union of Great Britain
• Charles Gildon – The Golden Spy
• White Kennett – A Vindication of the Church and Clergy of England
• William King – Miscellanies in Prose and Verse
• John Lawson – A New Voyage to Carolina
• Delarivier Manley – The New Atalantis
• John Strype – Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion
• Jonathan Swift
• *A Famous Prediction of Merlin
• *A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners
• *A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff
• William Temple – Memoirs: Part III
• John Trenchard – The Natural History of Superstition
• Giambattista Vico – De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Rationae

  Drama

• Anthony Aston – Love in a Hurry
• Susanna Centlivre
• *The Busie Body
• *The Man's Bewitch'd
• Colley Cibber – The Rival Fools
• Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon – Electre
• John Dennis – Appius and Virginia
• Thomas d'Urfey – The Modern Prophets
• Juan Claudio de la Hoz y Mota – José, salvador de Egipto
• Charles Johnson – Love and Liberty
• Alain-René Lesage – Turcaret
• Mary Pix – The Adventures in Madrid

  Poetry

• John Reynolds – Death's Vision Represented in a Philosophical Sacred Poem
• Poetical Miscellanies: The Sixth Part

  Births

• April 14 – Charles Collé, French dramatist
• July 24 – James Harris, English grammarian
• August 7 – Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan, French polymath, author and poet
• August 29 – Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset, French poet and dramatist
• September 3 – Joan Claudi Peiròt, French writer in Occitan
• September 18 – Samuel Johnson, English author, critic, lexicographer and poet
• November 1 – Ignatius von Weitenauer, German Jesuit writer, exegete and Orientalist
• November 23 – Julien Offray de La Mettrie, French philosopher and physician
• December 14 – Caspar Friedrich Hachenberg, German grammarian
• unknown dates
• *Richard Burn, English legal writer
• *John Bancks, English poet, bookseller and biographer
• probable
• *James Adair, Irish historian
• *John Armstrong, Scottish poet, satirist and physician
• *John Cleland, controversial English novelist

  Deaths

• January – Robert Gould, English poet
• February 15 – John Philips, English poet
• May 17 – Mary Pix, English novelist and dramatist
• June 28 – Gustaf Adlerfelt, Swedish military diarist
• June 30 – Edward Lhuyd, Welsh naturalist and antiquary
• September 4 – Jean-François Regnard, French poet and dramatist
• December 1 – Abraham a Sancta Clara, Austrian theologian
• December 3 – Elizabeth Burnet, English religious writer and philanthropist
• December 8
• *Thomas Corneille, French dramatist
• *Bernadine a Piconio, French theologian and exegete