1678 in literature

The year 1678 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• Thomas Otway, escaping from an unhappy love affair, obtains a commission in the army.
• Printer Joseph Moxon becomes the first tradesman to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

New books

• Jacob Boehme - Mysterium Magnum, oder Erkärung über das Erste Buch Mosis (Amsterdam & Frankfurt; contains a portrait of Boehme by N. van Werd)
• John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress
• Ralph Cudworth - The True Intellectual System of the Universe
• Madame de la Fayette (published anonymously) - La Princesse de Clèves
• Sir Thomas Herbert - Threnodia Carolina
• Thomas Hobbes - Decameron Physiologicum
• Josiah King - The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas Together with his Clearing by the Jury
• The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-Shire (a woodcut showing what is alleged to be the first crop circle)
• The Works of Geber, Englished by Richard Russell.
• Thomas Rymer - The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered

New drama

• John Banks - The Destruction of Troy
• Aphra Behn - Sir Patient Fancy
• William Chamberlain - Wits Led by the Nose, or a Poet's Revenge published
• John Dryden
  • All for Love
  • The Kind Keeper
• Thomas d'Urfey
  • Trick for Trick
  • Squire Old-Sapp, or the Night Adventurers
• Edward Howard - The Man of Newmarket
• John Learned
  • The Counterfeits
  • The Rambling Justice
• Thomas Otway - Friendship in Fashion
• Samuel Pordage - The Siege of Babylon
• Edward Ravenscroft - The English Lawyer (adapted from George Ruggle's Latin play Ignoramus)
  • Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia (adapted from Shakespeare's play)
• Thomas Shadwell
  • The History of Timon of Athens the Man-Hater
  • A True Widow
• Nahum Tate - Brutus of Alba

Poetry

• Anne Bradstreet - Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (posthumously published)
• Samuel Butler - Hudibras, Part 3
• Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter - Själens aandelige Sangoffer ("The Souls Spiritual Offering of Song")

Births

• January 10 - Paul Gabriel Antoine, theologian (died 1743)
• May - Anna Maria van Schurman, poet
• July - Thomas Hearne, editor of medieval manuscripts (died 1735)
• December 14 - Daniel Neal, historian (died 1743)
• date unknown
  • Thomas Sherlock, theologian (died 1761)
  • William Wogan, religious writer (died 1758)
• probable - George Farquhar, dramatist (died 1707)

Deaths

• January 16 - Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé, salon hostess and writer
• April 12 - Sir Thomas Stanley, poet, author and translator (born 1625)
• May 4 - Abraham Woodhead, Catholic writer (born 1609)
• August 16 - Andrew Marvell, poet (born 1621)
• August 17 - Guillaume Herincx, Belgian Franciscan theologian (born 1621)
• November 21 - Robert Thoroton, antiquary (born 1623)
• date unknown
  • Theophilus Gale, theologian (born 1628)
  • Jean de Launoy, French historian (born 1603)
• probable - Richard Flecknoe (born c.1600)

In literature

• The action of Walter Scott's novel Peveril of the Peak (1823) centres on the Popish Plot beginning in this year.

References