1659 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1659.

Events

• January 27 - Poet Andrew Marvell is elected member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull in the Third Protectorate Parliament of England.
• August - William Davenant is briefly imprisoned for his part in George Booth's Cheshire uprising.
• Méric Casaubon edits John Dee's journal of angel magic.
• Icelandic pastor Jón Magnússon completes composition of his Píslarsaga ("Passion Saga" or "Story of My Sufferings").

New books

• Richard Baxter - The Holy Commonwealth
• Méric Casaubon - A True and Faithful Relation of what passed for many Years between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits
• Thomas Hobbes - De Homine
• Christiaan Huygens - Systema Saturnium
• Ninon de l'Enclos - La coquette vengée ("The Flirt Avenged")
• Richard Lovelace - Lucasta (posthumous)
• Péter Révay - De monarchia et sacra corona regni hungariae centuriae septem
• Anna Maria van Schurman - The Learned Maid, or Whether a Maid May Be a Scholar? (English translation of the 1638 Latin original)
• Jeremy Taylor - Discourse on the Nature, Offices and Measures of Friendship
• Francisco Martinez de Mata - Epítome

New drama

• Joan Leonardsz Blasius - De Edelmoedige Vijanden
• Sir William Davenant - The History of Sir Francis Drake
• Molière - Les précieuses ridicules
• Agustín Moreto - No puede ser...

Published drama

• Anonymous - The London Chanticleers
• Richard Brome - Five New Plays, a collection that included The English Moor, The Lovesick Court, The Weeding of Covent Garden, The New Academy, and The Queen and Concubine
• John Day & Henry Chettle - The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (published six decades after its premiere)
• Richard Flecknoe - The Marriage of Oceanus and Britannia
• Walter Montague - The Shepherd's Paradise
• James Shirley - The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses and Honoria and Mammon
• Juan Bautista Diamante - El honrador de su padre

Poetry

• William Chamberlayne - Pharonnida: A heroick poem
• Luis de Ulloa Pereira - Versos

Births

• January 1 – Humphrey Hody, English theologian and archdeacon (died 1707)
• March – Margrethe Lasson, Danish novelist (died 1738)
• March 25 – John Asgill, English pamphleteer (died 1738)
• March 26 – William Wollaston, English philosopher, classicist and cleric (died 1724)
• April 29 – Sophia Elisabet Brenner, Swedish poet and writer (died 1730)
• Unknown dates
  • Thomas Creech, English classicist and translator (died 1700)
  • Kata Szidónia Petrőczy, Hungarian poet (died 1708)

Deaths

• January 7 – Laurenz Forer, Swiss theologian and controversialist writing in Latin and German (born 1580)
• January 31 – János Apáczai Csere, Hungarian linguist, mathematician and encyclopedist (born 1625)
• February 4 – Francis Osborne, English essayist (born 1593)
• April 15 – Simon Dach, German poet and hymnist (born 1605)
• June 3 – Morgan Llwyd, Welsh preacher, poet and writer (born 1619)
• September 22 – Thomas Morton, English polemicist and bishop (born 1564)
• October 27 – Giovanni Francesco Busenello, Italian poet and librettist (born 1598)