1663 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1663.

Events

February
- The Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Academy of the Humanities) is founded in Paris.^[1]
- Katherine Philips' translation of Pierre Corneille's Pompée is produced successfully at the Theatre Royal, Dublin (Smock Alley Theatre) in Ireland, as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English and the first English play written by a woman to be performed on a professional stage. It is published in Dublin and London later in the year.^[2]
- London printer John Twyn is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn for producing the anonymous A Treatise of the Execution of Justice, justifying civil rebellion.^[3]
February 24 – John Milton marries his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, 31 years his junior, at St Mary Aldermary in the City of London.
May 7 – The King's Company inaugurates its new theatre, the first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, with a revival of Fletcher's The Humorous Lieutenant.^[4]^[5] The play succeeds and runs for twelve nights in a row, unusual under the repertory system of the time.
August – The Playhouse to Be Let, an anthology of work by Sir William Davenant, is performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London.^[6]
December 1 – John Dryden marries Elizabeth, sister of Sir Robert Howard.^[7] Dryden and John Aubrey become Fellows of the Royal Society in the same year.
unknown dates
- In the Electorate of Bavaria, a legal deposit law requires copies of all newly printed books to be deposited in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.^[8]
- In England, Roger L'Estrange is appointed Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses^[9]^[10] and licenser of the press.^[5]
- The Third Folio of Shakespeare's plays is published by Philip Chetwinde in London, adding Pericles and six plays of Shakespeare Apocrypha to the canon.
- Publication takes place at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Eliot Indian Bible" (Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God) makes it the first complete Bible published in the Americas. The translation by the English-born Puritan missionary John Eliot of the Geneva Bible from English into the Massachusett language (Natic or Wômpanâak) variety of the Algonquian languages is printed by Samuel Green.^[11]

New books

Prose

Molière – La Critique de l'école des femmes^[12]
John Spencer – A Discourse concerning Prodigies, wherein the vanety of Presages by them is reprehended, and their true and proper Ends asserted and vindicated

Drama

Anonymous – The Wandering Whores' Complaint for Want of Trading (published)
Miguel de Barrios – El Espanjol de Oran
Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – The General
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (after Jonson) – Sir Politic Would-Be
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
- El divino Orfeo
- El mágico prodigioso
Henry Cary – The Marriage Night
Abraham Cowley – The Cutter of Coleman Street
William Davenant
- The Playhouse to Be Let (performed)
- The Siege of Rhodes Part 2 (published)
John Dryden – The Wild Gallant
Andreas Gryphius
- Absurda Comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz
- Papinianus
Edward Howard – The Usurper (first performance; published 1667)^[13]
James Howard – The English Monsieur
Sir Robert Howard – The Committee
"T. P." – A Witty Combat, or the Female Victor (once attributed to Thomas Porter)
Thomas Porter – The Villain
Richard Rhodes – Flora's Vagaries
Sir Robert Stapylton
- The Stepmother
- The Slighted Maid^[14]
Sir Samuel Tuke – The Adventures of Five Hours (adapted from Antonio Coello's Los empeños de seis horas)

Poetry

Abraham Cowley – Verses Upon Several Occasions
Sir William Davenant – Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty

Births

February 12 – Cotton Mather, New England Puritan author and minister (died 1728)
March 6 – Francis Atterbury, English man of letters and bishop (died 1732
March 22 – August Hermann Francke, German theologian (died 1727)
May 20 – William Bradford, American printer (died 1752)
Unknown dates
- William King, English poet (died 1712)
- George Stepney, English poet (died 1707)
Probable year of birth – Delarivier Manley, English novelist, playwright and pamphleteer (died 1724)

Deaths

April 5 – John Norton, English religious writer (born 1606)
April 17 – David Questiers, Dutch poet (born 1623)
July 14 – Elizabeth Egerton, countess of Bridgwater, English essayist (childbirth, born 1626)
October 31 – Théophile Raynaud, French theologian (born 1583)
December 5 – Severo Bonini, Italian music writer (born 1582)
Unknown date – Claude de Bourdeille, comte de Montrésor, French memoirist (born c. 1606)

References

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