1774 in literature

Events

• February 22 – The English legal case of Donaldson v Beckett is decided in the House of Lords, denying the continued existence of a perpetual common law copyright and holding that copyright is a creation of statute and can be limited in its duration. This permits authors to claim copyright on their own works.
• September 14 – A new Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam opens with the première of Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken's tragedy Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk.
• September 29 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's semi-autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther is published anonymously in Leipzig, Germany; it is influential in the Sturm und Drang movement and Romanticism.
• After the destruction of the Schloss Weimar by fire, Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, forms a commission for its reconstruction directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
• James Lackington begins in the London bookselling business.
• Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider becomes secretary to Richard François Philippe Brunck.
• Approximate date – The National and University Library of Slovenia in Ljubljana is established as the Lyceum Library, from the remains of the dissolved Jesuit library and several monastery libraries.

  New books

Fiction

• Jeremy Bentham – The White Bull
• Henry Brooke – Juliet Grenville
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – The Sorrows of Young Werther
• Charles Johnstone – The History of Arsaces
• The Newgate Calendar
• Christoph Martin Wieland – Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte

  Children

• Johann Bernhard Basedow – Elementarwerk

  Drama

• Miles Peter Andrews – The Election
• John Burgoyne – The Maid of the Oaks
• George Colman the Elder – The Man of Business
• Charles Dibdin – The Waterman
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Clavigo
• Hugh Kelly – The Romance of an Hour
• Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz – The Tutor
• Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – El delincuente honrado

  Poetry

• James Beattie – The Minstrel, volume 2
• William Dunkin – Poetical Works
• Oliver Goldsmith – Retaliation
• Richard Graves – The Progress of Gallantry
• William Mason – An Heroic Postscript to the Public
• Hannah More – The Inflexible Captive
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – The Tears of A Genius, occasioned by the Death of Dr. Goldsmith
• Henry James Pye – Farringdon Hill
• Mary Scott – The Female Advocate
• William Whitehead – Plays and Poems, by William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat
• Cándido María Trigueros – El poeta filósofo o Poesías filosóficas en verso pentámetro

  Non-fiction

• Giacomo Casanova – Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia
• Mary Deverell – Sermons
• Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
• Oliver Goldsmith
• *The Grecian History
• *An History of the Earth and Animated Nature
• Henry Home – Sketches of the History of Man
• John Hutchins – The History and Antiquities of Dorset
• Thomas Jefferson – A Summary View of the Rights of British America
• Samuel Johnson – The Patriot
• Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz – The History of Louisiana, or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina
• Joseph Priestley – Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
• William Richardson – A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters
• Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes – Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular
• Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield – Letters to his Son
• Sugita Genpaku – Kaitai Shinsho
• Horace Walpole – A Description of Strawberry-Hill
• Thomas Warton – The History of English Poetry
• John Wesley – Thoughts upon Slavery

  Births

• January 1 – Pietro Giordani, Italian translator, scholar and writer
• February 24 – Archibald Constable, Scottish publisher
• July 14 – Francis Lathom, Dutch-born English Gothic novelist and dramatist
• August 12 – Robert Southey, English poet and Poet Laureate

  Deaths

• April 4 – Oliver Goldsmith, Irish dramatist
• April 28 – Gottfried Lengnich, German/Polish historian
• September 17 – Abraham Langford, English auctioneer and playwright
• October 16 – Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet
• Catherine Michelle de Maisonneuve, French editor and writer