1660 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1660.

Events

• January 1 – Samuel Pepys starts his diary.
• February – John Rhodes reopens the old Cockpit Theatre in London, forms a company of young actors and begins to stage plays. His production of Pericles will be the first Shakespearean performance of the Restoration era; Thomas Betterton makes his stage debut in the title rôle.
• May – The English Restoration: a host of royalist exiles return to England, Richard Baxter among them, and many panegyrics are produced to commemorate the event.
• August 21 – The newly restored King Charles II of England issues a royal grant for two theatre companies: a King's Company under his own patronage, led by Thomas Killigrew, and a Duke's Company under the patronage of his brother, the Duke of York and future King James II, led by Sir William Davenant. On November 8, the King's Company moves from the old Red Bull Theatre to the new Vere St. Theatre.
• September 5 – Roger Boyle receives the title of Earl of Orrery.
• December 8 – First actress to appear on the professional stage in England in a non-singing rôle, as Desdemona in Othello, variously considered to be Margaret Hughes, Anne Marshall or Katherine Corey.^[1][2][3]
• Royalist poet Robert Herrick returns to his parish in Devon following the English Restoration.^[4]
• Francis Kirkman operates an early form of lending library, based on his collection of plays, in Westminster (London).
• The Klencke Atlas is commissioned by Dutch merchants as a gift to King Charles II of England; at 1.75 m (5 ft 9in) tall it is one of the world's largest books.
• Blaise Pascal's Lettres Provinciales is burned as a heretical work on the orders of King Louis XIV of France.

New books

Prose

• Sarah Blackborow – The Just and Equall Ballance Discovered
• Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux – Satires
• John Dryden – Astraea Redux
• Richard Flecknoe – Heroick Portraits
• George Mackenzie – Aretina (the first Scottish novel)^[5]
• John Milton – The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth
• Thomas Plowden, S.J. (translated) – The Learned Man Defended and Reform'd (Daniello Bartoli's L'huomo di lettere)
• Jeremy Taylor – Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience
• Francisco Manuel de Melo – Epanáphoras de varia historia portuguesa

Drama

• Anonymous (misattributed to James Shirley) – Andromana (published)
  • Cromwell's Conspiracy
  • (misattributed to Beaumont and Fletcher) – The Faithful Friends (registered)
• Thomas Ford – Love's Labyrinth, or the Royal Shepherdess (published)
• William Lower – The Amorous Fantasm (adapted from Philippe Quinault's Le Fantôme Amoreux)
• John Tatham
  • London's Glory (staged at the Guildhall)
  • The Rump (published)
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca – Celos aun del aire matan
• Molière – Sganarelle, ou Le Cocu imaginaire

Poetry

• Rachel Jevon – Exultationis Carmen
• Robert Wild – Iter Boreale. Attempting Something upon the Successful and Matchless March of the Lord General George Monk from Scotland to London^[6]

Births

• March 28 – Arnold Houbraken, Dutch writer and painter (died 1719)
• May or earlier – Anne Killigrew, English poet (died 1685)
• Unknown dates
  • Daniel Defoe, English novelist and travel writer (died 1731)
  • Edward Lhuyd, Welsh naturalist and antiquary (died 1709)
  • Hippolyte Hélyot, French church historian (died 1716)
  • Thomas Southerne, Irish dramatist (died 1749)
• Probable year of birth – Liu Zhi (劉智), Chinese Muslim scholar (died c. 1739)

Deaths

• April 30 – Petrus Scriverius, Dutch scholar and writer (born 1576)
• October 6 – Paul Scarron, French dramatist and novelist (born c. 1610)
• December 31 – Thomas Powell, Welsh writer and cleric (born c. 1608)
• Unknown date – Sir Thomas Urquhart, Scottish writer and translator (born 1611)

References