1729 in literature

Events

• November 28 – The English theologian Thomas Woolston is convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to prison for the remaining four years of his life on account of his published Discourses on Biblical literalism.
• unknown date – Charles Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé is translated into English for the first time, by Robert Samber as Histories or Tales of Past Times, told by Mother Goose. It includes such favourite fairy tales as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots.

  New books

Prose

• James Bramston – The Art of Politics
• Henry Carey – Poems on Several Occasions
• Edward Cooke – Battel of the Poets
• Thomas Cooke – Tales, Epistles, Odes, Fables
• Daniel Defoe as Andrew Moreton, Esq. – Second Thoughts are Best: or, a Further Improvement of a Late Scheme to Prevent Street Robberies
• Robert Drury – Madagascar, or Robert Drury's Journal
• William Hatchett – The Adventures of Abdalla
• Eliza Haywood – The Fair Hebrew; or, A True, but Secret History of Two Jewish Ladies
• Thomas Innes – Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of the Northern Parts of Britain
• Soame Jenyns – The Art of Dancing
• William Law – A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
• Daniel Mace – The New Testament in Greek and English
• Isaac Newton – The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
• John Oldmixon – The History of England, during the Reigns of the Royal House of Stuart
• William Pulteney – The Honest Jury
• James Ralph – Clarinda
• Elizabeth Singer Rowe – Letters on Various Occasions
• Richard Savage – The Wanderer
• Thomas Sherlock – The Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus
• Jonathan Swift
• *An Epistle Upon an Epistle From a Certain Doctor to a Certain Great Lord
• *A Modest Proposal
• William Wycherley – The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley ii.
• Benito Jerónimo Feijoo – Ilustración apologética''

  Children

• Robert Samber – Histories or Tales of Past Times, told by Mother Goose

  Drama

• Colley Cibber – Love in a Riddle
• Charles Coffey – The Beggar's Wedding
• John Gay – Polly
• Eliza Haywood – Frederick
• Charles Johnson – The Village Opera
• Samuel Johnson – Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural
• Thomas Odell
• *The Patron
• *The Smugglers
• Thomas Southerne – Money the Mistress
• James Thomson – Britannia

  Poetry

• Moses Browne – Piscatory Eclogues
• Alexander Pope – The Dunciad, Variorum

  Births

• January 12 – Edmund Burke, Irish political writer and politician
• January 22 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German writer, dramatist and critic
• January 23 – Clara Reeve, English novelist
• April 13 – Thomas Percy, English poet, translator and bishop
• August 11 – Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun, French poet
• September 6 – Moses Mendelssohn, German philosopher of the Haskalah or Jewish enlightenment
• September 25 – Christian Gottlob Heyne German classicist and archaeologist
• September 29 – John Duncombe, English poet, antiquary and cleric
• Unknown date – Thomas Hawkins, English literary editor and cleric

  Deaths

• January 19 – William Congreve, English dramatist and poet
• May 17 – Samuel Clarke, English philosopher and cleric
• September 1 – Richard Steele, Irish journalist, satirist and dramatist
• October 9 – Sir Richard Blackmore, English poet and religious writer
• November 16 – Abel Boyer, French-born lexicographer, journalist and miscellanist
• December 13 – Anthony Collins, English philosopher
• Unknown date – Gershom Carmichael, Scottish philosopher