1651 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1651.

Events

• August 22 – Execution on Tower Hill in London of Welsh Protestant preacher Christopher Love, whose sermons are later published.

New books

• Noah Biggs – Chymiatrophilos, Matæotechnia medicinæ praxeōs, The vanity of the Craft of Physick, or, A new dispensator
• William Bosworth – The Chaste and Lost Lovers
• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Parthenissa (first section)
• William Cartwright – Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with Other Poems
• Mary Cary (Rande) – The Little Horn's Doom and Downfall and A New and More Exact Map of the New Jerusalem's Glory
• Baltasar Gracián – El Criticón, first part
• Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil
• John Milton – Defensio pro Populo Anglicano
• 'A Scholler in Oxford' – Newes from the Dead, or a True and Exact Narration of the Miraculous Deliverance of Anne Greene; whereunto are prefixed certain Poems casually written upon that subject
• Anna Weamys – A Continuation of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia
• Sir Henry Wotton (posthumous) – Reliquiæ Wottonianæ; or, a collection of lives, letters, poems; with characters of sundry personages: and other incomparable pieces of language and art "By the curious pensil of the ever memorable Sr Henry Wotton Kt, late, provost of Eton Colledg"
• Francisco de Quevedo – Virtud militante contra las cuatro pestes del mundo y cuatro fantasmas de la vida
• Jerónimo de Cáncer – Vejamen
• Baltasar Gracián – El criticón (first part)
• Marin le Roy de Gomberville – Jeune Alcidiane
• Paul Scarron – Roman comique ("Comic romance"), first part
• Filip Stanislavov – Abagar, first printed book in modern Bulgarian

Published plays

• William Cartwright
  • The Lady Errant
  • The Ordinary
  • The Siege, or Love's Convert
• Thomas Randolph (attributed to) – Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery (adapted from Aristophanes' Plutus)
• Leonard Willan – Astraea, or True Love's Mirror (adapted from Honoré D'Urfé's L'Astrée)
• Pedro Calderon de la Barca – El alcalde de Zalamea
• Jerónimo de Cáncer – Obras varias
• Francisco López de Zárate – Hercules furente y oeta
• Juan de Matos Fragoso – La defensa de la Fè, y Principe prodigioso

Poetry

• Sir William Davenant – Gondibert (second impression)
• Henry Vaughan – Olor Iscanus ("Swan of Usk")
• Francisco de Borja y Aragón – Nápoles recuperada
• Manuel de Salinas y Lizana – La casta Susana, paráfrasis poética de su sagrada historia
• Francisco de Trillo y Figueroa – Neapolisea

Births

• April 6 – André Dacier, French classicist (died 1722)
• August 6 – François Fénelon, French theologian (died 1715)
• October 24 – Jean de La Chapelle, French dramatist (died 1723)
• November 12 – Juana Inés de la Cruz (Sor Juana), Mexican poet (died 1695)

Deaths

• January 29 – Diego de Colmenares, Spanish historian (born 1586)
• April – Elizabeth Richardson, 1st Lady Cramond, English women's writer (born c. 1576)
• October 7 – Jacques Sirmond, French scholar (born 1559)
• December 14 – Pierre Dupuy, French scholar (born 1582)
• Unknown dates
  • Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Italian poet and librettist (born 1606)
  • Adho Duraso, Rajasthani poet (born c. 1550)
  • Henry Rice, Welsh courtier and writer (born c. 1585)
  • Jean Roberti, Flemish theologian (born 1569)

In literature

• Georgette Heyer – Royal Escape (1938)
• Walter Scott – Woodstock, or The Cavalier. A Tale of the Year Sixteen Hundred and Fifty-one (1826)