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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1664.

Events

  • February – London publisher John Twyn is hanged, drawn and quartered, having been convicted of treason for distributing seditious literature.
  • April 6 – Moses ben Isaac Bonems is the first signatory of the approbations to works given by the members of the Council of Four Lands at the Gramnitza (candlestick) fair.
  • May 12 – Molière's comedy Tartuffe is performed in its original version as part of "The Pleasures of the Enchanted Island" at the court of King Louis XIV to mark the start of construction of the Palace of Versailles, but objections to its presentation of a hypocritical religious impostor ban it from later public presentation.
  • June – Gazzetta di Mantova is first published in Mantua, Italy. By 2009 it will be the world's oldest private newspaper still published, and the oldest one continuously published in print.
  • June 20 – Racine's tragedy La Thébaïde receives its first performance, by Molière's troupe at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré) in Paris.
  • October – Thomas Killigrew and the King's Company stage Killigrew's The Parson's Wedding with an all-female cast. (Killigrew attempts a similar all-female production of his play Thomaso, although this is never achieved.)
  • November 5 – Sir William Davenant's "dramatic opera" Macbeth, adapted from Shakespeare's play, is performed for the first time.

New books

Prose

  • Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle –
  • Sociable Letters
  • Philosophical Letters
  • July 21 (or 23) – Matthew Prior, English poet and diplomat (died 1721)
  • November 9 – Henry Wharton, English writer and librarian (died 1695)
  • Probable year of birth
  • Charles Hopkins, Anglo-Irish poet and dramatist (died 1700)
  • William Mountfort, English actor and dramatist (died 1692)

Deaths

  • January 10 – Nicholas Culpeper, English herbalist, physician and astrologer (born 1616)
  • January 20 – Isaac Ambrose, English Puritan writer (born 1604)
  • June 22 – Katherine Philips (Orinda), English poet, translator and woman of letters (born 1632)
  • July 16 – Andreas Gryphius, German lyric poet and dramatist (born 1616)
  • August 16 – James Heath, English Royalist historian (born 1629)
  • August 23 – Jean Bagot, Jesuit theologian (born 1591)
  • November 18 – Nikola Zrinski, Croatian/Hungarian military leader, statesman and poet (born 1620)
  • Unknown date – Qian Qianyi (銭謙益), Chinese poet and social historian (born 1582)
  • Probable year of death – Henry Robinson, merchant and writer (born c. 1604)

References