1655 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1655.

Events

• February 24 – The English playwright Thomas Porter abducts his future bride Anne Blount.
• March 26 – The playwright Thomas Porter kills a soldier named Thomas Salkeld in Covent Garden, probably in a duel, is consequently tried for murder, pleads guilty to manslaughter, is allowed benefit of clergy, and is sentenced to be burned in the hand.
• May–October – Church of England clergyman Jeremy Taylor is imprisoned at Chepstow Castle for an injudicious preface to his popular manual of devotion, Golden Grove; or a Manuall of daily prayers and letanies, published this year.
• August 6 – The Blackfriars Theatre in London is demolished.
• October 29 – To celebrate Lord Mayor's Day, Edmund Gayton's pageant Charity Triumphant or the Virgin Show is staged in London; it is the first City pageant in fifteen years.

New books

Prose

• John Bramhall – Defense of True Liberty (Anglican divine begins exchange of treatises with Thomas Hobbes)
• Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle – The World's Olio
• Nicholas Culpeper – Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick
• Thomas Fuller – The Church History of Britain
• John Heydon – Eugenius Theodidacticus
• Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange (attributed) – L'Escole des filles
• William Prynne
  • A New Discovery of Free-State Tyranny
  • The Quakers Unmasked
• Thomas Stanley – History of Philosophy
• John Wallis – Elenchus geomeiriae Hobbianae (attack on the works of Thomas Hobbes)
• Izaak Walton – The Compleat Angler (2nd edition)
• Baltasar Gracián – El comulgatorio
• Francisco de Quevedo – Política de Dios y gobierno de Cristo (second part)
• Diego de Saavedra Fajardo – Juicio de artes y ciencias

Drama

• Antony Brewer – The Lovesick King
• Lodowick Carlell – The Passionate Lovers, Parts 1 and 2
• Robert Daborne – The Poor Man's Comfort
• Robert Davenport – King John and Matilda
• Thomas Heywood and William Rowley – Fortune by Land and Sea
• Philip Massinger – Three New Plays, a collection that included The Guardian, The Bashful Lover, and (with John Fletcher) A Very Woman
• James Shirley
  • The Gentleman of Venice
  • The Politician
• Jeremy Taylor – Golden Grove; or a Manuall of daily prayers and letanies

Poetry

• Henry Vaughan – Silex Scintillans (part 2)

Births

• January 1 – Christian Thomasius, German philosopher (died 1728)
• February 7 – Jean-François Regnard, French dramatist and diarist (died 1709)
• February 28 – Johann Beer, Austrian author, court official and composer (died 1700)
• c. November – Jacob Tonson, English bookseller and publisher (died 1736)
• unknown date – Lin Yining (林以寧), Chinese poet (died c. 1730)

Deaths

• February 25 – Daniel Heinsius, Dutch poet (born 1580)
• May 8 – Edward Winslow, English theologian, pamphleteer and New England politician (born 1595)
• July 28 – Cyrano de Bergerac, French dramatist (born 1619)
• September 7 – François Tristan l'Hermite, French dramatist (born c. 1601)
• October 24 – Pierre Gassendi, French philosopher (born 1592)
• probable – John Reynolds, English poet, story-writer and pamphleteer (born c. 1588)