The year 1753 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The charter of the British Museum was granted
• The Act for the naturalization of Jews in England
• The earliest existing diary by a woman is written in 1753 by Mercy Seccombe, who had emigrated from Harvard, Massachusetts to Nova Scotia, Canada; her diary ends there.
• The Paper War of 1752-1753 comes to a close.

New books

• Theophilus Cibber - The Lives of the Poets
• Jane Collier - An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting
• William Hogarth - The Analysis of Beauty
• David Hume - Essays and Treatises
• William Melmoth the younger - The Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero
• Christopher Pitt et al. - The Works of Virgil in Latin and English
• Henry St. John - A Letter to Sir William Windham
• John Toland - Hypatia
• William Warburton - The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion
• George Whitefield - Hymns for Social Worship

Fiction

• Sarah Fielding - The Adventures of David Simple, Volume the Last
• Eliza Haywood - The History of Jemmy and Jenny
• Charlotte Lennox - Shakespear Illustrated (on Shakespeare's sources)
• Samuel Richardson - The History of Sir Charles Grandison
• Tobias Smollett - The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom

Poetry

• John Armstrong - Taste
• Thomas Gray and Richard Bentley the younger - Designs by Mr. R. Bently for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray
• Thomas Cooke - An Ode on Benevolence
• Robert Dodsley - Public Virtue
• Thomas Franklin - Translation
• Richard Gifford - Contemplation
• Henry Jones - Merit
• William Kenrick - The Whole Duty of Woman
• John Ogilvie - The Day of Judgment
• Christopher Smart - The Hilliad
• Thomas Warton - The Union

New drama

• Giacomo Casanova - La Moluccheide
• Kitty Clive - The Rehearsal
• Samuel Foote - The Englishman in Paris
• Richard Glover - Boadicea
• Carlo Goldoni - A Servant to Two Masters (Arlecchino servitore di due padroni), comedy, Italian.
• Henry Jones - The Earl of Essex
• Edward Moore - The Gamester
• Edward Young - The Brothers

Births

• March 8 - William Roscoe (died 1831)
• June 26 - Antoine de Rivarol (died 1801)
• date unknown - Phillis Wheatley (died 1784)
• Elizabeth Inchbald

Deaths

• January 14 - George Berkeley (born 1685)