1741 in literature

Events

• January 29 – A memorial to William Shakespeare, designed by William Kent and sculpted by Peter Scheemakers, is erected in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
• February 13 – Andrew Bradford launches the American colonies' first periodical in Philadelphia, the American Magazine.
• February 14 – Irish-born actor Charles Macklin makes his London stage debut as Shakespeare's Shylock at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, reversing the tradition of portraying the character as a comic villain.
• March 14 – K. K. Theater an der Burg in Vienna opens.
• October 19 – David Garrick makes his London stage debut, as Shakespeare's Richard III. His performance quickly packs theaters. His professional debut was earlier in the year at Ipswich, in Thomas Southerne's adaptation of Oroonoko.
• unknown date
• *The first translation of a Shakespeare play into German, Julius Caesar, is made by C. W. von Bork, using alexandrines.
• *Printer Robert Foulis sets up as a publisher in Edinburgh.

  New books

Fiction

• Anonymous
• *The Life of Pamela
• *Pamela Censured
• Charles Balguy – The Decameron
• Comte de Caylus – Les Féeries nouvelles
• Stephen Duck – Every Man in his Own Way
• Henry Fielding – An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews
• Eliza Haywood – The Anti-Pamela; or Feign’d Innocence Detected
• Ludvig Holberg – Niels Klim's Underground Travels
• John Kelly – Pamela's Conduct in High Life
• Alexander Pope with John Gay and John Arbuthnot – Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus
• Charles Povey – The Virgin in Eden
• Samuel Richardson
• *Letters Written to and for Particular Friends
• *Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded vols. iii – iv
• Hristofor Zhefarovich – Stemmatographia

  Drama

• Anonymous – Pamela; or, Virtue Triumphant
• Robert Dodsley – The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green
• David Garrick – The Lying Valet
• William Hatchett – The Chinese Orphan: An Historical Tragedy
• John Kelly – The Levee
• Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée – Mélanide
• Voltaire – Mahomet

  Poetry

• Geoffrey Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer
• William Shenstone – The Judgment of Hercules
• Edward Young – Poetical Works of the Reverend Edward Young
• Alonso Verdugo, third Earl of Torrepalma – Adonis
• John and Charles Wesley – A Collection of Psalms and Hymns

  Non-fiction

• Thomas Betterton – The History of the English Stage, from the Restoration to the Present
• Thomas Francklin – Of the Nature of the Gods
• David Hume – Essays Moral and Political
• Real Academia Española – Ortografía
• Luigi Riccoboni – An Historical and Critical Account of the Theatres of Europe
• Martín Sarmiento – Memorias para la historia de la poesía y poetas españoles
• Emanuel Swedenborg – A Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual Arcana by Way of Representation and Correspondences.
• Jonathan Swift
• *Dean Swift's Literary Correspondence
• *Some Free Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs
• Isaac Watts – The Improvement of the Mind
• Leonard Welsted – The Summum Bonum
• George Whitefield – A Letter to the Reverend John Wesley

  Births

• January 16 – Hester Thrale, English diarist and arts patron
• August 25 – Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, German theologian and adventurer
• October 4 – Edmond Malone, Irish Shakespearean editor
• October 18 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist
• October 28 – Johann August von Starck, German theologian and political writer

  Deaths

• January 9 – William Gwavas, English lawyer and writer in the Cornish language
• February 21 – Jethro Tull, English agricultural innovator and writer
• March 17 – Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French dramatist and poet
• April 10 – Celia Fiennes, English travel writer
• July 30 – Thomas Emlyn, English Unitarian writer
• December 14 – Charles Rollin, French historian
• December 21 – Bernard de Montfaucon, French scholar and palaeographer
• unknown date – Anne Dick, Scottish comic poet and lampoonist