1667 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1667.

List of years in literature (table)
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Events

• January – Courtier Tobias Rustat creates the first endowment for the purchase of books for Cambridge University Library in England.[1]
• March 2 – The première of John Dryden's tragicomedy Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London is well received by an audience including King Charles II of England, his brother the Duke of York and Samuel Pepys.[2][3] The cast includes Nell Gwyn in one of the first breeches roles in Restoration theatre[4] and her lover Charles Hart.
• April 15 - Edward Howard's play The Change of Crowns is first performed, in London. Actor John Lacy improvises a few lines about influence-peddling at court, angering King Charles II, a member of the audience (as is Samuel Pepys). The theatre is closed for a time and Lacy jailed.
• April 27 – The blind, impoverished 58-year-old John Milton seals a contract (one of the first detailed contracts between author and printer known in England)[5] for publication of Paradise Lost with London printer Samuel Simmons for an initial payment of £5.[6][7][8] The first edition is published in October[7] and sells out in eighteen months.[9]
• July – English scholar and poet Edmund Castell is imprisoned for debt.
• July 28 – For the second time in his life, playwright Thomas Porter mortally wounds an opponent (his friend Sir Henry Bellasis) in a duel, and is then forced to flee from England.[10]
• August 6 – Molière's satirical comedy Tartuffe receives its première in a revised form as L'Imposteur and is immediately banned.[11]
• August 20 – Molière writes his Lettre sur la comédie de l'Imposteur in response to criticisms of Tartuffe.
• September 12 – Sir William Davenant's adaptation of the old play Greene's Tu Quoque is first performed.
• November – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, is impeached by Parliament and forced into exile in France, where he spends the rest of his life working on his history of the English Civil War.
• November 7 – The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Tempest by John Dryden and Sir William Davenant, receives its première by the Duke's Company at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London; it becomes "the most frequently revived play of the entire Restoration".[12]

Uncertain date

The Roman Catholic Church places the works of René Descartes on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.[13]

New books

Prose

• Margaret Cavendish – The life of the thrice noble, high and puissant prince William Cavendishe, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle
• John Dryden – Annus Mirabilis, the Year of Wonders 1666
• Richard Head – The life and death of Mother Shipton
• Thomas Sprat – The History of the Royal Society

Drama

• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – The Black Prince
• J. Caryl – The English Princess, or the Death of Richard III
• Pierre Corneille – Attila
• William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle – The Humorous Lovers
• John Dryden – Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen
• Richard Flecknoe – The Damoiselles à la Mode
• Edward Howard – The Change of Crowns
• James Howard – All Mistaken
• John Lacy – Sauny the Scot, or the Taming of the Shrew (adapted from Shakespeare's play)
• Jean Racine – Andromaque
• Sir Charles Sedley – Antony and Cleopatra
• Elkanah Settle – Cambyses, King of Persia
• Sir Thomas St. Serfe – Tarugo's Wiles

Poetry

• Jeremias de Dekker (died 1666) – Lof der Geldzucht ("In praise of avarice" – satire)
• John Milton – Paradise Lost

Births

• April 29 – John Arbuthnot, Scottish satirist and polymath (died 1735)
• November 30 – Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist and novelist (died 1745)
• unknown dates
  • John Richardson, English Quaker preacher and autobiographer (died 1753)
  • Ned Ward (Edward Ward), English satirical writer and publican (died 1731)

Deaths

• January 19 – Percy Herbert, 2nd Baron Powis, English writer (born 1598)[14]
• March 16 (or 17) – Philippe Labbe, French Jesuit writer (born 1607)[15]
• May 2 – George Wither, English poet and pamphleteer (born 1588)
• May 14 – Georges de Scudéry, French poet (born 1601)[16]
• August 13 – Jeremy Taylor, English religious writer and bishop (born 1613)
• November – Grigory Kotoshikhin, Russian writer and diplomat (executed for murder, born 1630)
• probable – John Heydon, English Rosicrucian and writer on the occult (born 1629)

References

1. Oates, J. C. T. "The seventeenth century". A brief history of the collection. Cambridge University Library. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
2. Pepys' diary, 2 March 1666. Project Gutenberg, accessed 2008-09-12.
3. Saintsbury, George and Scott, Sir Walter (ed.) (1882). The Works of John Dryden 2. Edinburgh: William Paterson. pp. 414–416 ff.
4. Bax, Clifford (1969). Pretty Witty Nell. New York; London: Benjamin Blom. p. 89. ISBN 0-405-08243-6.
5. Gadd, I (2004). "Simmons, Matthew". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/69230. Retrieved June 5, 2013. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
6. Equivalent to approximately £7,400 income in 2008. "Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to Present". MeasuringWorth. 2010. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
7. Campbell, Gordon (2004). "Milton, John (1608–1674)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18800. Retrieved July 5, 2013. The sums involved are modest but quite normal.
8. Lindenbaum, Peter (1995). "Authors and Publishers in the Late Seventeenth Century: New Evidence on their Relations". The Library. Oxford University Press. s6-17 (3): 250–269. doi:10.1093/library/s6-17.3.250. ISSN 0024-2160.
9. "John Milton's Paradise Lost". The Morgan Library & Museum. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
10. Pepys' diary.
11. Tout Molière (French). Accessed 27 February 2013.
12. Dobson, Michael (1992). The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660–1769. Oxford University Press. pp. 59–60. ISBN 978-0-19-818323-5.
13. Peter Sahlins (2017). 1668: The Year of the Animal in France. Zone Books. p. 29.
14. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage. Burke's Peerage Limited. 1914. p. 1600.
15. Walter Farquhar Hook (1850). An Ecclesiastical Biography. F. and J. Rivington. p. 503.
16. Madeleine de Scudery (2004). Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues. University of Chicago Press. p. 7.