1751 in literature

	… 1741; 1742; 1743; 1744; 1745; 1746; 1747; ; 1748; 1749; 1750; 1751; 1752; 1753; 1754; ; 1755; 1756; 1757; 1758; 1759; 1760; 1761 …;
	In poetry 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754
	Art; Archaeology; Architecture; Literature; Music; Philosophy; Science; ...

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1751.

Events

May 19 – Demetrio, an opera based on lyrics by court poet Pietro Metastasio, with music by Davide Perez, is performed at Teatro San Samuele in Venice. In the same year, in Vienna, Metastasio writes the poem, Il rè pastore, later used by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to compose an opera seria.^[1]
June 28 – The first volume of Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie is published.^[2]
undated
- The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse becomes the first formally published modern cookbook in English.
- John Smith & Son's bookshop is established in Glasgow. It will claim to be the oldest surviving bookseller in the English-speaking world.^[3]

John Arbuthnot (died 1735) – Miscellaneous Works
Antoine Augustin Calmet – Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c.^[4]
Catharine Trotter Cockburn (died 1749) – The Works of Mrs. Catharine Cockburn
John Gilbert Cooper – Cursory Remarks on Mr. Warburton's New Edition of Mr. Pope's Works
Ignacio de Luzán – Memorias literarias de París
Denis Diderot – Encyclopédie
Henry Fielding – An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers
James Harris – Hermes, a philosophical inquiry concerning universal grammar
Henry Home, Lord Kames – Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion
David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
John Jortin – Remarks on Ecclesiastical History
Carl Linnaeus – Philosophia Botanica
Alexander Pope (died 1744) – The Works of Alexander Pope (ed. William Warburton)
Voltaire – The Age of Louis XIV
John Wesley – Serious Thoughts upon the Perseverance of Saints
Benjamin Whichcote (died 1683) – Works

January 23 – Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Baltic German writer (died 1792)^[5]
January 31 – Priscilla Wakefield (née Bell), English Quaker writer and philanthropist (died 1832)
February 20 – Johann Heinrich Voss, German poet and translator (died 1826)
July 29 – Elisabetta Caminèr Turra, Venetian writer and translator (died 1796)
October 9 – Pierre Louis de Lacretelle, French political writer (died 1824)
October 30 – Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish dramatist and politician (died 1816)
December 1 – Johan Henric Kellgren, Swedish poet and critic (died 1795)^[6]
unknown dates
- John Bowles, English political writer and lawyer (died 1819)
- Luciano Comella, Spanish dramatist (died 1812)^[7]
probable year
- Helen Craik, Scottish novelist and poet (died 1825)^[8]
- Mary Scott, English poet (died 1793)

May 24 – William Hamilton, Scottish comic poet (born c. 1665)
October 26 – Philip Doddridge, English nonconformist leader, educator and hymn writer (born 1702)^[9]
October 29 – Bartholomew Green, Boston printer (born 1701)
December 12 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English political philosopher (born 1678)

^ Pietro Metastasio (15 July 2014). Three Melodramas by Pietro Metastasio. University Press of Kentucky. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-8131-6387-1.
^ Peter Rickard (4 June 1981). The Embarrassments of Irregularity: The French Language in the Eighteenth Century. CUP Archive. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-521-28445-5.
^ "JS Group is a forward looking business that can trace its roots back to 1751 when the bookseller John Smith and Son was founded in Glasgow". JS Group. 2014. Archived from the original on 2016-03-15. Retrieved 2016-02-23.
^ Orešković, Luc (2010). "Le thème des lycanthropes et des vampires, de Dom Calmet à l'abbé de Fortis : une approche des pays de confins". Dix-huitième siècle. 42 (1): 265–284. doi:10.3917/dhs.042.0265. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
^ Konzett, Matthias (2015). Encyclopedia of German Literature. Routledge. p. 1357. ISBN 9781138631291. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
^ Kellgren, Johan Henrik (1838). Samlade skrifter (in Swedish). N.M. Lindhs boktryckeri. p. 12. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
^ Germán Bleiberg; Maureen Ihrie; Janet Pérez (1993). Dictionary of the Literature of the Iberian Peninsula. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-313-28731-2.
^ Elizabeth L. Ewan; Sue Innes; Sian Reynolds; Rose Pipes, eds. (2007). Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-7486-2660-1.
^ Deacon, Malcolm (1980). Philip Doddridge of Northampton. Northampton: Northamptonshire Libraries. ISBN 0-905391-07-1.