1702 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1702.

Events

March 8 (O.S.) – Accession of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, upon the death of her brother-in-law William III.
March 11 (O.S.) – The first regular English national newspaper, The Daily Courant, begins publication,^[1] in Fleet Street in the City of London. It covers only foreign news.
October – Jonathan Swift returns to Ireland in the company of Esther Johnson.
unknown dates
- Ballet master John Weaver presents the burlesque Tavern Bilkers at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, the first English pantomime. It is not a success.^[2]
- The first book set in the Romain du Roi Roman type, devised for use by the Imprimerie nationale in France: Médailles sur les principaux événements du règne de Louis le Grand, is printed.^[3]
- Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England, is completed to the design of playwright John Vanbrugh and architect Nicholas Hawksmoor.^[4]

Louise de Bossigny, comtesse d'Auneuil – La Tiranie des fées détruite (The Tyranny of the Fairies Destroyed)
Thomas Brown, et al. – Letters From the Dead to the Living
Edmund Calamy – An Abridgement of Mr Baxter's History of His Life and Times
Daniel Defoe
- An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity
- The Mock-Mourners (on the death of William III)
- A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty
- Reformation of Manners
- The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (anonymous; December)
- The Spanish Descent
John Dennis – The Monument
Laurence Echard – A General Ecclesiastical History
George Farquhar – Love and Business
Edmund Gibson – Synodus Anglicana (on the convocation)
Charles Gildon (?) – A Comparison Between the Two Stages (on the "War of the Theatres")
Examen Miscellaneum
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702–1704, written in the 1640s and late 1660s. Also known as Clarendon's History)
George Keith – The Standard of the Quakers Examined
John Kersey – A New English Dictionary; or, a complete collection of the most proper and significant words, commonly used in the language
Cotton Mather – Magnalia Christi Americana
Matthew Prior – To a Young Gentleman in Love
John Toland – Paradoxes of State
Catherine Trotter Cockburn – A Defence of the Essay of Human Understanding (re John Locke)

Matsuo Bashō (posthumously) – Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North)^[5]

June 26 – Philip Doddridge, English religious and writer and hymnist (died 1751)
Unknown date – Margareta Momma, Swedish journalist and publisher (died 1772)

January 1 – Samuel Green, American printer (born c. 1614)
January 17 – Roger Morrice, English journalist and diarist (born 1628)
February 17 – Peder Syv, Danish philologist, folklorist and priest (born 1631)
April 22 – François Charpentier, French archeologist and writer (born 1620)
May 17 (bur.) – Richard Sault, English mathematician, editor and translator (unknown year of birth)
May 27 – Dominique Bouhours, French literary critic (born 1628)
November – John Pomfret, English poet (born 1667)^[6]

^ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
^ William J. Burling (1992). A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-8386-3451-6.
^ Philip B. Meggs; Alston W. Purvis (16 May 2016). Meggs' History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-119-13623-1.
^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 201–202. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
^ As "Narrow Road to the Interior", Bolitho, Harold (2003), in Treasures of the Yenching: seventy-fifth anniversary of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Chinese University Press. ISBN 978-962-996-102-2. p. 35.
^ William Austin (1928). The History of Luton and Its Hamlets: Being a History of the Old Parish and Manor of Luton in Bedfordshire. County Press. p. 43.