18th century in literature Juvenal’s Third Satire, by Samuel Johnson is published. Like so many poets of the 18th century Johnson sought to breathe new life into his favorite classical author Juvenal. In 1740, Samuel Richardson's "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded" is published and Marquis de Sade is born. 1744 1745 1748 1749 1751 1754 1755 1760–1767 Laurence Sterne wrote "Tristram Shandy". 1764 1766 1768 1770 April 7: William Wordsworth is born. 1773 Oliver Goldsmith's play "She Stoops to Conquer", a farce, was performed in London. 1776 The United States Declaration of Independence is created and ratified. 1777 the comedy play "The School for Scandal",
Paris in the 18th century Robespierre and a member of the radical Jacobin club, became the unofficial minister of propaganda of the Revolution. He created a series of paintings associating the French Revolution with the virtues of the ancient Rome, and designing costumes and pageants for the Revolutionary government. After the fall of Robespierre, he was imprisoned, freed, and at the beginning of the 19th century was painting portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte. Of the great French writers of the 18th century, the two most famous, Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, spent most of their careers far from Paris, either in exile or under strict censorship. Early