1609 in literature

The year 1609 in literature involved some significant literary events and new works.

Events

• January 1 – The Children of the Blackfriars perform Thomas Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One at the English Court.
• January 15 – Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, an early newspaper, begins publication in Wolfenbüttel (Holy Roman Empire).
• c. May – London publisher Thomas Thorpe issues Shake-speares Sonnets, with a dedication to "Mr. W.H.", and the poem A Lover's Complaint appended; it is uncertain whether this publication has Shakespeare's authority.
• July 28 – The Sea Venture is wrecked in Bermuda – this event is thought to be an inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest.^[1]
• October 12 – A version of the rhyme "Three Blind Mice" is published in Deuteromelia or The Seconde part of Musicks melodie (London). The editor, and possible author of the verse, is the teenage Thomas Ravenscroft.^[2]
• December 8 – The Sala Fredericiana, the first reading room of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, opens to readers. This is one of the first major libraries to have the bookshelves ranged around the walls.^[3]
• December 21 – William Ames delivers a controversial sermon for St Thomas's Day, criticizing the "heathenish debauchery" of Cambridge students during the Twelve Days of Christmas.
• c. December – Ben Jonson's comedy Epicœne, or The silent woman is premièred at the Whitefriars Theatre in London by the Children of the Queen's Revels led by Nathan Field with Edward Kynaston in the title rôle.
• Samuel Daniel completes the eighth and last book of his epic poem, Civil Wars.
• Jacques Auguste de Thou's Historia sui temporis is placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
• Francis Tregian the Younger is imprisoned in England, partly for his Catholic sympathies, and perhaps begins copying out the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

New books

• Douay-Rheims Bible^[4]
• Inca Garcilaso de la Vega – Comentarios Reales de los Incas
• Edward Grimeston – A General History of the Netherlands
• Hugo Grotius – Mare liberum
• Johannes Kepler – Astronomia nova
• Thomas Middleton
  • Sir Robert Sherley his Entertainment in Cracovia (translation)
  • The Two Gates of Salvation
• Thomas Dekker – Four Birds of Noah's Ark and The Gull's Hornbook
• Thomas Rowlands – A Whole Crew of Kind Gossips
• William Rowley – A Search for Money
• St. Francis de Sales – Introduction à la vie dévote
• Wang Qi and Wang Siyi – Sancai Tuhui

New drama

• Anonymous – Every Woman in Her Humour (published)
• Robert Armin (published)
  • The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke
  • The Italian Tailor and his Boy
• Fulke Greville – Mustapha (published)
• Ben Jonson
  • (and collaborators?) – The Case is Altered (published)
  • Epicœne, or The silent woman
• William Shakespeare – Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Troilus and Cressida (published)

New poetry

• Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo – La Patrona de Madrid restituida
• William Shakespeare – The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint

Births

• February 10 – Sir John Suckling, poet (died 1642)
• February 18 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, historian (died 1674)
• August 19 – Jean Rotrou, dramatist (died 1650)
• October 5 – Paul Fleming, poet (died 1640)
• December 24 – Philip Warwick, politician and memoirist (died 1683)
• date unknown – Gerrard Winstanley, political writer (died 1676)
• probable – Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède, novelist and dramatist (died 1663)

Deaths

• January 21 – Joseph Justus Scaliger, French Protestant writer (born 1540)
• March 9 – William Warner, poet (born c. 1558)
• August 22 – Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Jewish mystic and philosopher (born 1525)
• October 19 – Jacobus Arminius, theologian (born 1560)
• December 4 – Alexander Hume, poet (born c. 1560)
• December – Barnabe Barnes, poet (born c. 1568)
• probable – Mateo Alemán, Spanish novelist and man of letters (born 1547)

References