1598 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1598.

Events

 * Before September – A second edition of Love's Labour's Lost appears in London as the first known printing of a Shakespeare play to have his name on the title page ("Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere").
 * February 23 – Thomas Bodley refounds the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
 * March 28 – Philip Henslowe contracts Edward Alleyn and Thomas Heywood to act for the Admiral's Men in London for two years.
 * April 30 – A comedy, by an anonymous playwright about an expedition of soldiers, is the very first theatrical performance in North America, staged near El Paso for Spanish colonists.
 * May 3 – The Spanish playwright Lope de Vega marries for the second time, to Juana de Guardo.
 * c. May – The premiėre of William Haughton's Englishmen for My Money, or, A Woman Will Have Her Will introduces what is seen as the first city comedy, probably by the Admiral's Men at London's Rose Theatre.
 * c. July/September – Ben Jonson's comedy of humours Every Man in His Humour is probably first performed, by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the Curtain Theatre, London, perhaps with Shakespeare playing Kno'well.
 * September 7 – Francis Meres' Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury is registered for publication, including the first list and critical discussion of Shakespeare's works; he also mentions that Shakespeare's "sugar'd sonnets" are circulating privately.
 * September 22 – Ben Jonson kills actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel in London and is briefly held in Newgate Prison, but escapes capital punishment by pleading benefit of clergy.
 * October – Edmund Spenser's castle at Kilcolman, County Cork, near Doneraile in Ireland, is burned down by native forces under Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Spenser leaves for London shortly after.
 * November 25 – Henry Chettle is paid for "mending" a play about Robin Hood to make it suitable for performance at court.
 * December 28 – London's The Theatre is dismantled.
 * unknown dates
 * Lancelot Andrewes turns down the bishoprics of Ely and Salisbury.
 * The English poet Barnabe Barnes is prosecuted in the Star Chamber for attempted murder of one John Browne, first by offering him a poisoned lemon and then by sweetening his wine with sugar laced with mercury sublimate; Browne survives both attempts.
 * John Marston's The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres begins a trend in English satirical writing that leads to official suppression in the following year.

Prose

 * John Bodenham – Politeuphuia (Wits' Commonwealth)
 * John Florio – A World of Words, Italian/English dictionary, the first dictionary published in England to use quotations ("illustrations") for meaning to the words
 * Emanuel Ford – Parismus, the Renowned Prince of Bohemia (first part)
 * King James VI of Scotland – The Trew Law of Free Monarchies
 * Francis Meres – Palladis Tamia
 * Merkelis Petkevičius – Polski z litewskim katechism
 * John Stow – Survey of London
 * Zhao Shizhen – Shenqipu (3rd century, possible first publication)
 * Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer – Enchuyser zeecaertboeck (Enkhuizen book of sea charts)

Drama

 * Anonymous
 * The Famous Victories of Henry V earliest known publication
 * Mucedorus published
 * The Pilgrimage to Parnassus (earliest possible date of composition)
 * Jakob Ayrer
 * Von der Erbauung Roms (The Building of Rome)
 * Von der schönen Melusina (Fair Melusina)
 * Samuel Brandon – Virtuous Octavia
 * Henry Chettle, Henry Porter and Ben Jonson – Hot Anger Soon Cold
 * Robert Greene – The Scottish History of James IV published
 * William Haughton – Englishmen for My Money
 * Ben Jonson – Every Man in His Humour
 * Anthony Munday – The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon
 * Anthony Munday (and Henry Chettle?) – The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon
 * Henry Porter – Love Prevented
 * William Shakespeare
 * Henry IV, Part 1 (published)
 * Love's Labour's Lost (published)

Poetry

 * Richard Barnfield
 * The Encomium of Lady Pecunia
 * Poems in Divers Humours
 * George Chapman – translation of Homer's Iliad into English
 * Lope de Vega – La Arcadia and La Dragontea
 * Christopher Marlowe – Hero and Leander (completed by Chapman following Marlowe's death)
 * John Marston – The Metamorphosis of Pigmalian's Image and The Scourge of Villanie

Births

 * March 12 – Guillaume Colletet, French writer (died 1659)
 * March 13 – Johannes Loccenius, German historian (died 1677)
 * July 29 – Henricus Regius, Dutch philosopher and correspondent of René Descartes (died 1679)
 * August 7 – Georg Stiernhielm, Swedish poet (died 1672)
 * unknown date – Johann George Moeresius, German poet (died 1657)

Deaths

 * January 2 - Morris Kyffin, Welsh soldier and author (born c.1555)
 * January 9 – Jasper Heywood, English translator (born 1535)
 * February 27 – Friedrich Dedekind, German theologian (born 1524)
 * April 10 – Jacopo Mazzoni, Italian philosopher (born 1548)
 * August – Alexander Montgomerie, outlawed Scottish poet (born c. 1545/1550)
 * December 6 – Paolo Paruta, Venetian historian (born 1540)
 * December 15 – Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde, Dutch statesman and author (born 1540)
 * December 31 – Heinrich Rantzau, German humanist writer (born 1526)
 * unknown date – David Powel, Welsh historian who popularised continuing legends such as that of Prince Madoc (born c. 1549)