# 1663 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1663.

## Events

* February
** The Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Academy of the Humanities) is founded in Paris.
** Katherine Philips' translation of Pierre Corneille's Pompée is produced successfully at the Theatre Royal, Dublin (Smock Alley Theatre) in Ireland, as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English and the first English play written by a woman to be performed on a professional stage. It is published in Dublin and London later in the year.
** London printer John Twyn is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn for producing the anonymous A Treatise of the Execution of Justice, justifying civil rebellion.
* February 24 – John Milton marries his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, 31 years his junior, at St Mary Aldermary in the City of London.
* May 7 – The King's Company inaugurates its new theatre, the first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, with a revival of Fletcher's The Humorous Lieutenant. The play succeeds and runs for twelve nights in a row, unusual under the repertory system of the time.
* August – The Playhouse to Be Let, an anthology of work by Sir William Davenant, is performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London.
* December 1 – John Dryden marries Elizabeth, sister of Sir Robert Howard. Dryden and John Aubrey become Fellows of the Royal Society in the same year.
* unknown dates
** In the Electorate of Bavaria, a legal deposit law requires copies of all newly printed books to be deposited in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.
** In England, Roger L'Estrange is appointed Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses and licenser of the press.
** The Third Folio of Shakespeare's plays is published by Philip Chetwinde in London, adding Pericles and six plays of Shakespeare Apocrypha to the canon.
** Publication takes place at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Eliot Indian Bible" (Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God) makes it the first complete Bible published in the Americas. The translation by the English-born Puritan missionary John Eliot of the Geneva Bible from English into the Massachusett language (Natic or Wômpanâak) variety of the Algonquian languages is printed by Samuel Green.

## New books
### Prose

* Molière – La Critique de l'école des femmes
* John Spencer – A Discourse concerning Prodigies, wherein the vanety of Presages by them is reprehended, and their true and proper Ends asserted and vindicated

### Drama

* Anonymous – The Wandering Whores' Complaint for Want of Trading (published)
* Miguel de Barrios – El Espanjol de Oran
* Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – The General
* George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (after Jonson) – Sir Politic Would-Be
* Pedro Calderón de la Barca
** El divino Orfeo
** El mágico prodigioso
* Henry Cary – The Marriage Night
* Abraham Cowley – The Cutter of Coleman Street
* William Davenant
** The Playhouse to Be Let (performed)
** The Siege of Rhodes Part 2 (published)
* John Dryden – The Wild Gallant
* Andreas Gryphius
** Absurda Comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz
** Papinianus
* Edward Howard – The Usurper (first performance; published 1667)
* James Howard – The English Monsieur
* Sir Robert Howard – The Committee
* "T. P." – A Witty Combat, or the Female Victor (once attributed to Thomas Porter)
* Thomas Porter – The Villain
* Richard Rhodes – Flora's Vagaries
* Sir Robert Stapylton
** The Stepmother
** The Slighted Maid
* Sir Samuel Tuke – The Adventures of Five Hours (adapted from Antonio Coello's Los empeños de seis horas)

### Poetry

* Abraham Cowley – Verses Upon Several Occasions
* Sir William Davenant – Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty

## Births

* February 12 – Cotton Mather, New England Puritan author and minister (died 1728)
* March 6 – Francis Atterbury, English man of letters and bishop (died 1732
* March 22 – August Hermann Francke, German theologian (died 1727)
* May 20 – William Bradford, American printer (died 1752)
* Unknown dates
** William King, English poet (died 1712)
** George Stepney, English poet (died 1707)
* Probable year of birth – Delarivier Manley, English novelist, playwright and pamphleteer (died 1724)

## Deaths

* April 5 – John Norton, English religious writer (born 1606)
* April 17 – David Questiers, Dutch poet (born 1623)
* July 14 – Elizabeth Egerton, countess of Bridgwater, English essayist (childbirth, born 1626)
* October 31 – Théophile Raynaud, French theologian (born 1583)
* December 5 – Severo Bonini, Italian music writer (born 1582)
* Unknown date – Claude de Bourdeille, comte de Montrésor, French memoirist (born c. 1606)