1732 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1732.

• April – The London Magazine is founded in opposition to the pro-Tory Gentlemen's Magazine.^[1]
• December 7 – The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London (predecessor of the Royal Opera House) is opened by John Rich with a revival of William Congreve's The Way of the World.^[2]
• December 13 – The first issue of Then Swänska Argus, by Olof von Dalin, is published in Sweden, introducing the "younger new Swedish" (yngre nysvenska) literary language.
• December 28 – The first edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, by Benjamin Franklin, is published in America.
• unknown date – Trinity College Library in Dublin, designed by Thomas Burgh, is completed.^[3]

• George Berkeley – Alciphron
• Johann Jakob Bodmer – translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost into German prose
• Elizabeth Boyd – The Happy-Unfortunate
• Mary Davys – The False Friend (fiction)
• Philip Doddridge – Sermons on the Religious Education of Children
• Robert Dodsley – A Muse in Livery
• George Granville, Lord Lansdowne – The Genuine Works
• Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Sultanes de Guzarate, contes mogols (Mogul Tales; or, the Dreams of Men Awake)
• John Horsley – Britannia Romana, or The Roman Antiquities of Britain
• William King – The Toast
• Alain-René Lesage – Les avantures de monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne, capitaine de flibustiers dans la Nouvelle-France (The Adventures of Robert Chevalier, Call'd de Beauchene, Captain of a Privateer in New-France)^[4]
• George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton – The Progress of Love
• Daniel Neal – The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists
• Richard Savage – An Epistle to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole
• Philip Skippon – An Account of a Journey Made Thro ̓ Part of the Low-Countries, Germany, Italy, and France
• Jonathan Swift
  • The Lady's Dressing Room
  • The Grand Question Debated
  • (with Pope and others) Miscellanies: The Third Volume
• Isaac Watts – A Short View of the Whole Scripture History
• Leonard Welsted – Of Dulness and Scandal (answer to The Dunciad)
• Gilbert West – Stowe
• Martín Sarmiento – Demostración apologética

• Henry Carey
  • Amelia (opera)
  • The Disappointment
  • Terminta
• Henry Fielding
  • The Lottery
  • The Modern Husband
  • The Covent-Garden Tragedy
  • The Old Debauchees
  • The Mock Doctor (performed)
• John Gay (with Alexander Pope) – Acis and Galatea (opera by Handel)
• Charles Johnson – Caelia
• John Kelly – The Married Philosopher
• Pierre de Marivaux – The Triumph of Love (Le Triomphe de l'amour)
• James Miller – The Modish Couple
• Voltaire – Zaïre

• Heyat Mahmud – Sarbabhedbāṇī; Bengali^[5]
• John Milton – Milton's Paradise Lost, edited by Richard Bentley

• January 6 – Matija Antun Relković, Croatian grammarian and poet (died 1798)
• January 24 – Pierre de Beaumarchais, French writer (died 1799)^[6]
• February – Charles Churchill, English satirist and poet (died 1764)
• February 19 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist (died 1811)
• April – George Colman the Elder, English dramatist and essayist (died 1794)
• August 24 – Peter Ernst Wilde, German physician, journalist and printer (died 1785)
• September 29 – Samuel Musgrave, English classical scholar and pamphleteer (died 1780)

• February 13 – Charles-René d'Hozier, French historian (born 1640)^[7]
• February 22 – Bishop Francis Atterbury, English politician and writer (born 1663)
• March 20 – Johann Ernst Hanxleden, German poet and lexicographer (born 1681)^[8]
• March 29 (buried) – Jane Barker, English dramatist and poet (born 1652)
• May 9 – Samuel Palmer, English printer (year of birth unknown)
• July 3 (buried) – Mary Davys, Irish poet and dramatist (born 1674)^[9]
• December 2 – Constantia Grierson, Irish poet and classical scholar (born c. 1705)
• December 4 – John Gay, English poet and dramatist (born 1685)^[10]
• December 22 – Joseph Thurston, English poet (born 1704)^[11]