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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1684.

Events

  • June 25 – The death of Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow, gives rise to establishment of the Leighton Library at Dunblane, the oldest surviving public subscription (lending) library in Scotland.
  • July 25 – The English novelist and dramatist Mary Griffith marries merchant George Pix.
  • November 11 – The English dramatist Nathaniel Lee is admitted to Bedlam Hospital for the insane.
  • unknown dates
  • The Protestant Academy of Saumur is closed down by King Louis XIV.
  • John Banks' historical play The Island Queens, or the Death of Mary Queen of Scotland is banned from the stage; it is produced as The Albion Queens twenty years later (1704).
  • Pierre Bayle begins his journal of literary criticism, Nouvelles de la république des lettres.

New books

Fiction

  • Aphra Behn – Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
  • John Bunyan – The Pilgrim's Progress, Second Part
  • Giovanni Paolo Marana – Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
  • Ihara Saikaku – The Great Mirror of Beauties

Drama

  • Jean de La Chapelle – Ajax
  • John Horne – Fortune's Task, or the Fickle Fair One
  • John Lacy – Sir Hercules Buffoon
  • Pavao Ritter Vitezović – Odiljenje sigetsko (Farewell at Sziget)

Non-fiction

  • Jakob Abbadie – Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne
  • Dorcas Dole – Once More a Warning to Thee, O England, but more particularly to the inhabitants of the city of Bristol (by a Quaker)
  • Edward Phillips – Enchiridion linguae latinae
  • Christian Knorr von Rosenroth – Kabbala Denudata (publication completed)
  • Christopher Sandius – Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum
  • George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax – The Character of a Trimmer
  • Antonio de Solís y Rivadeneyra – Historia de la conquista de México

Births

  • February 21 – Justus van Effen, Dutch journalist writing also in French (died 1735)
  • October 16 – Peter Walkden, English diarist (died 1769)
  • December 3 – Ludvig Holberg, Danish/Norwegian essayist, philosopher and playwright (died 1754)

Deaths

  • April 1 – Roger Williams, English-born American theologian (born 1603)
  • October 1 – Pierre Corneille, French dramatist (born 1606)
  • December 7 – John Oldham, English satirical poet and translator (born 1653)
  • Unknown date – Francisco de Avellaneda, Spanish dramatist and poet (born c. 1625)

References