This article is a summary of the major literary events and publications of 1734.

• January – Le Cabinet du Philosophe, a new periodical by Pierre de Marivaux, is unsuccessfully launched; it is discontinued in April.^[1]
• June 10 – Copies of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (Letters on the English) are burned, and a warrant is issued for the author's arrest.^[2]
• November – George Faulkner begins publication of an edition of Jonathan Swift's Works in Dublin^[3] with a corrected text.
• Manoel da Assumpcam begins writing his grammar of the Bengali language.
• Göttingen State and University Library is established.

• January 10 – Fleury Mesplet, French-born Canadian writer and newspaper publisher (died 1794
• July 25 – Ueda Akinari, Japanese poet and novelist (died 1809)
• October 23 – Nicolas-Edme Rétif, French novelist (died 1806)
• December 31 – Claude Joseph Dorat (Le Chevalier Dorat), French writer (died 1780)
• Unknown dates
  • Catharina Ahlgren, Swedish writer (died 1800)
  • Robert Aitken, Scottish-born American printer and publisher (died 1802)

• January 6 – John Dennis, English dramatist and critic (born 1658)
• February 24 – Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, French writer of fairy tales and salonnière (born 1664)^[4]
• March 1 – Roger North, English biographer and lawyer (born 1653)
• April 25 – Johann Konrad Dippel, German theologian (born 1673)
• May – Richard Cantillon, Irish-born French economist (born 1680)
• September 17 – Thomas Fuller, English man of letters and proverb collector (born 1654)
• October – Thomas Lloyd, Welsh lexicographer (born c. 1673)
• October 18 – James Moore Smythe, English dramatist and fop (born 1702)^[5]