1540 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1540.

Events

 * July 22 – Klemens Janicki is appointed poeta laureatus by Pope Paul III.
 * December 13 – John Standish's religious work  is printed by Elisabeth Pickering, the first work known to be printed in London by a woman.
 * unknown dates
 * The first known book from the first printing press in North America, set up in Mexico City, is published, Manual de Adultos.
 * Sir David Lyndsay's Middle Scots satirical morality play A Satire of the Three Estates is given a private first performance.
 * Lazare de Baif travels with Pierre de Ronsard to Alsace, where they meet northern humanists.

Prose

 * Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo – Amadis de Gaula Book 1 (translated into French by Nicolas de Herberay des Essarts at request of Francis I of France)
 * Hector Boece – Historia Scotorum (translated into Middle Scots by John Bellenden at request of James V of Scotland)
 * Rösslin – The Byrth of Mankynde (De partu hominis, translation attributed to Richard Jonas)
 * Georg Joachim Rheticus – De libris revolutionum Copernici narratio prima (abstract of Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium)

Poetry

 * Tontada Siddhesavara – Shatsthala Jnanamrita
 * Souterliedekens (Dutch metrical psalter dedicated to and perhaps compiled by Willem van Zuylen van Nijevelt)

Approximate year
 * Sir Thomas More – Lady Fortune
 * Girolamo Schola – Capituli di M. Girolamo Schola sopra varii suggetti

Births

 * January 26 – Florent Chrestien, French satirist and Latin poet (died 1596)
 * June 11 – Barnabe Googe, English pastoral poet and translator (died 1594)
 * unknown dates
 * Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, French soldier, historian and poet (died 1614)
 * Rhys Cain, Welsh-language poet (died 1614)
 * Frei Agostinho da Cruz (brother of Diogo Bernardes), Portuguese poet (died 1619)

Deaths

 * May 6 – Juan Luis Vives, Spanish humanist polymath (born 1493)
 * May 22 – Francesco Guicciardini, Italian historian and statesman (born 1483)
 * October 5 – Helius Eobanus Hessus, German Latin poet (born 1488)
 * October – Robert Redman, London printer