1772 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1772.

Events

March – Gottfried August Bürger obtains a magistracy and is reconciled with his family.^[1]
May 7 – The Stadsschouwburg theatre in Amsterdam is destroyed by fire.
June
- At Marseilles, the Marquis de Sade embarks on an orgy, as a result of which he is convicted in absentia of sodomy and poisoning and receives a death sentence; he escapes.
- Charles Burney tours Europe, researching for his History of Music.^[2]
September 12 – The Göttinger Hainbund of German poets is formed at a midnight ritual in an oaken grove.
November 10 – The wife of poet Pedro Correia Garção obtains an order for his release from prison, the very day of his death.
November 28 – Publication of the Bible in the Manx language is completed.^[3]
unknown dates
- Thomas Paine produces his first published work, a political article entitled Case of the Officers of Excise.^[4]
- Hannah More arrives in London.
- An Armenian language press is set up in Chennai, India.

Mark Akenside – Poems
Thomas Chatterton – The Execution of Sir Charles Bawdin
William Jones – Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages
William Kenrick – Love in the Suds
William Mason – The English Garden
Christopher Smart – Hymns, for the Amusement of Children
George Alexander Stevens – Songs

Alphabetum grandonico-malabaricum sive samscrudonicum (with a preface by Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi)
The Encyclopédie in 28 volumes by Diderot, d'Alembert, and many others
Moses Browne – The Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ
José Cadalso – Los eruditos a la violeta
William Chambers – A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening
Junius (possibly Philip Francis) – Junius: Stat Nominis Umbra
Francis Grose – The Antiquities of England and Wales
Johann Gottfried Herder – Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (Treatise on the Origin of Language)
Richard Hurd – An Introduction to the Study of Prophecies...
Carsten Niebuhr – Beschreibung von Arabien
Joseph Priestley – The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours
Francis Stoughton Sullivan (died 1766) – An Historical Treatise on the Feudal Law, and the Constitution and Laws of England
Catherine Talbot – Essays on Various Subjects
Wilhelm Abraham Teller – Wörterbuch des Neuen Testamentes zur Erklärung der christlichen Lehre (Dictionary of the New Testament for the Explanation of Christian Doctrine)

January 15 – James Ballantyne, Scottish editor and publisher (died 1833)
March 10 – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, German poet, literary critic, philosopher and philologist (died 1829)
April 11 – Manuel José Quintana, Spanish poet (died 1857)
May 2 – Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg), German poet and philosopher (died 1801)
August 29 – Sarah Burney, English novelist (died 1844)
September 27 – Sándor Kisfaludy, Hungarian poet (died 1844)
October 21 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet (died 1834)
November 17 – Marc-Antoine Madeleine Désaugiers, French dramatist (died 1827)
November 28 – Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann, German classical commentator and philologist (died 1848)
December 6
- John Carr, English travel writer and lawyer (died 1832)
- Henry Cary, Gibraltar-born Irish author, editor and translator (died 1844)
unknown date – Maria Riddell, West Indies-born poet, naturalist and travel writer resident in Scotland (died 1808)^[5]
probable – Charlotte Dacre, English Gothic novelist (died 1825)^[6]

March 26 – Charles Pinot Duclos, French novelist and encyclopedist (born 1704)
March 29 – Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher (born 1688)
May 22 – Durastante Natalucci, Italian historian (born 1687)
June – Thomas Whately, English politician and writer (born 1726)
June 18 – Johann Ulrich von Cramer, German philosopher (born 1706)
October 7 – John Woolman, American abolitionist author (smallpox, born 1720)^[7]
October 10 – William Wilkie, Scottish poet (ague, born 1721)^[8]
November 10 – Pedro Correia Garção, Portuguese poet (born 1724)
unknown dates
- Thomas Hawkins, English editor and cleric (born 1729)
- Margareta Momma, Swedish editor and writer (born 1702)

^ William Alfred Little (1974). Gottfried August Bürger. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8057-2185-0.
^ Roger H. Lonsdale (1965). Dr. Charles Burney: A Literary Biography. Clarendon Press.
^ Wood, G. W. (1896). "An Account of the Translation and Editions of the Holy Scriptures in the Manx Language". The Manx Church Magazine. 6.
^ J. C. D. Clark (2018). Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution. Oxford University Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-19-881699-7.
^ Moira Ferguson (16 November 1995). Eighteenth-Century Women Poets: Nation, Class, and Gender. SUNY Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-7914-2512-1.
^ Lucy Cogan (12 February 2016). Confessions of the Nun of St Omer: by Charlotte Dacre. Routledge. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-317-26694-5.
^ Slaughter, Thomas P. (2008). The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition, New York: Hill and Wang, p. 378
^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1900). "Wilkie, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 61. London: Smith, Elder & Co.