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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
• 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. 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.
• December 1 – John Dryden marries Elizabeth, sister of Sir Robert Howard. 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.
  • In England, Roger L'Estrange is appointed Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses and licenser of the press.
  • 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.

New books

Prose

• Molière – La Critique de l'école des femmes
• 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)
• 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
• 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)