1655 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1655.

Events

• February 24 - English playwright Thomas Porter abducts his future bride Anne Blount.
• March 26 - 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.
• Thomas Stanley begins his History of Philosophy.

New books

• John Bramhall - Defense of True Liberty; Bramhall, an Anglican divine, begins a correspondence of treatises with Thomas Hobbes
• Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle - The World's Olio
• Thomas Fuller - The Church History of Britain
• John Heydon - Eugenius Theodidacticus
• Michel Millot - L'Escole des filles
• William Prynne - A New Discovery of Free-State Tyranny
• Sir William Sales - Theophania
• John Wallis - Elenchus geomeiriae Hobbianae, an attack on the work of Thomas Hobbes
• Izaak Walton - The Compleat Angler, second edition
• Baltasar Gracián - El comulgatorio
• Francisco de Quevedo - Política de Dios y gobierno de Cristo (second part)
• Diego Saavedra Fajardo - Juicio de artes y ciencias

Published plays

• Anonymous - The Gossips' Brawl, or the Women Wear the Breeches
• 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 & William Rowley - Fortune by Land and Sea
• Sir William Lower - Polyeuctes, or the Martyr
• Philip Massinger - Three New Plays, a collection that included The Guardian, The Bashful Lover, and (with John Fletcher) A Very Woman
• William Rider - The Twins
• James Shirley - The Gentleman of Venice and The Politician
• Jeremy Taylor - Golden Grove; or a Manuall of daily prayers and letanies . .

Poetry

• Henry Vaughan - Silex Scintillans (part 2)
• Earl of Rebolledo
  • La constancia victoriosa
  • Elegías sacras

Births

• January 1 – Christian Thomasius, German philosopher (died 1728)
• November (approximate date) – Jacob Tonson, English bookseller and publisher (died 1736)

Deaths

• February 25 – Daniel Heinsius, Dutch poet (born 1580)
• 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 year of death – John Reynolds, English poet, story-writer and pamphleteer (born c. 1588)