1720 in literature

Events

• September–October – The "South Sea Bubble", i. e. the collapse of the South Sea Company in England, affects the fortunes of many writers, including John Gay. It features in several works of literature. There are suspicions of complicity by Robert Walpole's government.
• December 29 – The Haymarket Theatre in London opens with a performance of La Fille à la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris.
• unknown date – Jonathan Swift begins major composition work on Gulliver's Travels in Ireland.

  New books

Prose

• Thomas Boston – Human Nature in its Fourfold State
• Jane Brereton – An expostulatory Epistle to Sir Richard Steele upon the Death of Mr. Addison
• Thomas Brown – The Remains of Mr. Thomas Brown
• Josiah Burchett – A Complete History of the Most Remarkable Transactions at Sea
• William Rufus Chetwood – The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures, and Miraculous Escapes of Capt. Richard Falconer
• Samuel Croxall – The Fair Circassian
• Daniel Defoe
• *Captain Singleton
• *Memoirs of a Cavalier
• *
• Charles Gildon – All for the Better
• Thomas Hearne – A Collection of Curious Discourses
• Aaron Hill – The Creation
• Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in Ireland
• Hildebrand Jacob – The Curious Maid
• Madame de La Fayette – Histoire d'Henriette d'Angleterre
• Delarivière Manley – The Power of Love
• Alexander Pennecuik – Streams From Hellicon
• Alexander Pope – The Iliad of Homer v, vi
• Richard Rawlinson – The English Topographer
• Martha Sansom – The Epistles of Clio and Strephon
• George Sewell – A New Collection of Original Poems
• Richard Steele
• *The Crisis of Property
• *A Nation a Family
• Jonathan Swift – A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture
• William Temple – The Works of Sir William Temple
• Simon Tyssot de Patot – La Vie, les Aventures et le Voyage de Groenland du Révérend Père Cordelier Pierre de Mésange
• Ned Ward – The Delights of the Bottle

  Drama

• John Dennis – The Invader of His Country
• Benjamin Griffin – Whig and Tory
• John Hughes – The Siege of Damascus
• John Leigh – Hob's Wedding
• Pierre de Marivaux
• *L'Amour et la vérité
• *Arlequin poli par l'amour
• Charles Molloy – The Half-Pay Officers
• John Mottley – The Imperial Captives

  Poetry

• John Gay – Poems on Several Occasions
• A New Miscellany of Original Poems
• Matthew Prior – The Conversation
• Allan Ramsay
• *A Poem on the South-Sea
• *Poems

  Births

• January 8 – James Merrick, English poet and scholar
• January 13 – Richard Hurd, English writer and bishop
• January 27 – Samuel Foote, English actor and playwright
• July 18 – Gilbert White, English naturalist
• October 2 – Elizabeth Montagu, English scholar and bluestocking
• October 17 – Jacques Cazotte, French romance writer
• October 19 – John Woolman, American Quaker diarist and preacher
• November 28 – Madeleine de Puisieux, French philosopher and feminist writer
• December 13 – Carlo Gozzi, Italian playwright

  Deaths

• February 17 – John Hughes, English poet, editor and translator
• April 21 – Antoine Hamilton Irish writer in French
• June 27 – Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu, French poet and wit
• August 5 – Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, English poet
• August 9 – Simon Ockley, English orientalist
• August 17 – Anne Dacier, French scholar and translator
• September 1 – Eusèbe Renaudot, French theologian and orientalist
• September 9 – Philippe de Dangeau, French author and army officer
• unknown date – Shalom Shabazi, Jewish Yemeni rabbi and poet