1663 in literature

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)