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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1655.

Events

  • February 24 – The English playwright Thomas Porter abducts his future bride Anne Blount.
  • March 26 – The playwright 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, , 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.

New books

Prose

  • John Bramhall – Defense of True Liberty (Anglican divine begins exchange of treatises with Thomas Hobbes)
  • Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle – The World's Olio
  • Nicholas Culpeper – Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick
  • Thomas Fuller – The Church History of Britain
  • John Heydon – Eugenius Theodidacticus
  • Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange (attributed) – L'Escole des filles
  • William Prynne
  • A New Discovery of Free-State Tyranny
  • The Quakers Unmasked
  • Thomas Stanley – History of Philosophy
  • John Wallis – (attack on the works of Thomas Hobbes)
  • Izaak Walton – The Compleat Angler (2nd edition)
  • Baltasar Gracián – El comulgatorio
  • Francisco de Quevedo – Política de Dios y gobierno de Cristo (second part)
  • Diego de Saavedra Fajardo – Juicio de artes y ciencias

Drama

  • 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 and William Rowley – Fortune by Land and Sea
  • Philip Massinger – Three New Plays, a collection that included The Guardian, The Bashful Lover, and (with John Fletcher) A Very Woman
  • James Shirley
  • The Gentleman of Venice
  • The Politician
  • Jeremy Taylor –

Poetry

  • Henry Vaughan – Silex Scintillans (part 2)

Births

  • January 1 – Christian Thomasius, German philosopher (died 1728)
  • February 7 – Jean-François Regnard, French dramatist and diarist (died 1709)
  • February 28 – Johann Beer, Austrian author, court official and composer (died 1700)
  • c. November – Jacob Tonson, English bookseller and publisher (died 1736)
  • unknown date – Lin Yining (林以寧), Chinese poet (died c. 1730)

Deaths

  • February 25 – Daniel Heinsius, Dutch poet (born 1580)
  • May 8 – Edward Winslow, English theologian, pamphleteer and New England politician (born 1595)
  • 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 – John Reynolds, English poet, story-writer and pamphleteer (born c. 1588)

References