1659 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1659.

Events

 * January 27 – The poet Andrew Marvell is elected a member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull in England's Third Protectorate Parliament.
 * August – William Davenant is briefly imprisoned for his part in George Booth's Cheshire uprising in favor of restoring the English Monarchy.
 * unknown dates
 * Méric Casaubon edits John Dee's journal of angel magic.
 * The Icelandic pastor Jón Magnússon completes his Píslarsaga (Passion Saga, or Story of My Sufferings).

Prose

 * Richard Baxter – The Holy Commonwealth
 * Méric Casaubon (ed.) – A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes) and some spirits
 * Thomas Hobbes – De Homine
 * Christiaan Huygens – Systema Saturnium
 * Ninon de l'Enclos – La Coquette vengée (The Flirt Avenged)
 * Richard Lovelace – Lucasta (posthumous)
 * William Prynne – Parliamentary Writs (further parts in 1660, 1662 and 1664)
 * Johann Heinrich Rahn – Teutsche Algebra
 * Péter Révay – De monarchia et sacra corona regni hungariae centuriae septem
 * John Rushworth – Historical Collections of Private Passages of State... (also The Rushworth Papers)
 * Anna Maria van Schurman – The Learned Maid, or Whether a Maid May Be a Scholar? (English version of 1638 Latin original)
 * Jeremy Taylor – Discourse on the Nature, Offices and Measures of Friendship

Drama

 * Anonymous – The London Chanticleers
 * Richard Brome – Five New Plays, including The English Moor, The Lovesick Court, The Weeding of Covent Garden, The New Academy, and The Queen and Concubine
 * Joan Leonardsz Blasius – De Edelmoedige Vijanden
 * Sir William Davenant – The History of Sir Francis Drake
 * John Day and Henry Chettle – The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (published six decades after its premiere)
 * Juan Bautista Diamante – El honrador de su padre
 * Richard Flecknoe – The Marriage of Oceanus and Britannia
 * Molière – Les Précieuses ridicules
 * Walter Montague – The Shepherd's Paradise
 * Agustín Moreto – No puede ser...
 * James Shirley
 * The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses
 * Honoria and Mammon
 * Joost van den Vondel – Jephta

Poetry

 * William Chamberlayne – 
 * Luis de Ulloa Pereira – Versos

Births

 * January 1 – Humphrey Hody, English theologian and archdeacon (died 1707)
 * March – Margrethe Lasson, Danish novelist (died 1738)
 * March 25 – John Asgill, English pamphleteer (died 1738)
 * March 26 – William Wollaston, English philosopher, classicist and cleric (died 1724)
 * April 29 – Sophia Elisabet Brenner, Swedish poet and writer (died 1730)
 * unknown dates
 * Thomas Creech, English classicist and translator (died 1700)
 * Kata Szidónia Petrőczy, Hungarian poet (died 1708)

Deaths

 * January 7 – Laurenz Forer, Swiss theologian and controversialist writing in Latin and German (born 1580)
 * January 31 – János Apáczai Csere, Hungarian linguist, mathematician and encyclopedist (born 1625)
 * February 4 – Francis Osborne, English essayist (born 1593)
 * April 15 – Simon Dach, German poet and hymnist (born 1605)
 * June 3 – Morgan Llwyd, Welsh preacher, poet and writer (born 1619)
 * September 22 – Thomas Morton, English polemicist and bishop (born 1564)
 * October 27 – Giovanni Francesco Busenello, Italian poet and librettist (born 1598)