1655 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1655.

Events

 * February 24 – The English playwright Thomas Porter abducts his future bride Anne Blount.
 * March 26 – The playwright Thomas Porter kills a soldier named Thomas Salkeld in Covent Garden, probably in a duel, is consequently tried for murder, pleads guilty to manslaughter, is allowed benefit of clergy, and is sentenced to be burned in the hand.
 * May–October – Church of England clergyman Jeremy Taylor is imprisoned at Chepstow Castle for an injudicious preface to his popular manual of devotion, Golden Grove; or a Manuall of daily prayers and letanies, published this year.
 * August 6 – The Blackfriars Theatre in London is demolished.
 * October 29 – To celebrate Lord Mayor's Day, Edmund Gayton's pageant Charity Triumphant or the Virgin Show is staged in London; it is the first City pageant in fifteen years.

Prose

 * John Bramhall – Defense of True Liberty (Anglican divine begins exchange of treatises with Thomas Hobbes)
 * Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle – The World's Olio
 * Nicholas Culpeper – Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick
 * Thomas Fuller – The Church History of Britain
 * John Heydon – Eugenius Theodidacticus
 * Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange (attributed) – L'Escole des filles
 * William Prynne
 * A New Discovery of Free-State Tyranny
 * The Quakers Unmasked
 * Thomas Stanley – History of Philosophy
 * John Wallis – Elenchus geomeiriae Hobbianae (attack on the works of Thomas Hobbes)
 * Izaak Walton – The Compleat Angler (2nd edition)
 * Baltasar Gracián – El comulgatorio
 * Francisco de Quevedo – Política de Dios y gobierno de Cristo (second part)
 * Diego de Saavedra Fajardo – Juicio de artes y ciencias

Drama

 * Antony Brewer – The Lovesick King
 * Lodowick Carlell – The Passionate Lovers, Parts 1 and 2
 * Robert Daborne – The Poor Man's Comfort
 * Robert Davenport – King John and Matilda
 * Thomas Heywood and William Rowley – Fortune by Land and Sea
 * Philip Massinger – Three New Plays, a collection that included The Guardian, The Bashful Lover, and (with John Fletcher) A Very Woman
 * James Shirley
 * The Gentleman of Venice
 * The Politician
 * Jeremy Taylor – Golden Grove; or a Manuall of daily prayers and letanies

Poetry

 * Henry Vaughan – Silex Scintillans (part 2)

Births

 * January 1 – Christian Thomasius, German philosopher (died 1728)
 * February 7 – Jean-François Regnard, French dramatist and diarist (died 1709)
 * February 28 – Johann Beer, Austrian author, court official and composer (died 1700)
 * c. November – Jacob Tonson, English bookseller and publisher (died 1736)
 * unknown date – Lin Yining (林以寧), Chinese poet (died c. 1730)

Deaths

 * February 25 – Daniel Heinsius, Dutch poet (born 1580)
 * May 8 – Edward Winslow, English theologian, pamphleteer and New England politician (born 1595)
 * July 28 – Cyrano de Bergerac, French dramatist (born 1619)
 * September 7 – François Tristan l'Hermite, French dramatist (born c. 1601)
 * October 24 – Pierre Gassendi, French philosopher (born 1592)
 * probable – John Reynolds, English poet, story-writer and pamphleteer (born c. 1588)