1663 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1663.

Events

 * February
 * The Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Academy of the Humanities) is founded in Paris.
 * Katherine Philips' translation of Pierre Corneille's Pompée is produced successfully at the Theatre Royal, Dublin (Smock Alley Theatre) in Ireland, as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English and the first English play written by a woman to be performed on a professional stage. It is published in Dublin and London later in the year.
 * London printer John Twyn is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn for producing the anonymous A Treatise of the Execution of Justice, justifying civil rebellion.
 * February 24 – John Milton marries his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, 31 years his junior, at St Mary Aldermary in the City of London.
 * May 7 – The King's Company inaugurates its new theatre, the first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, with a revival of Fletcher's The Humorous Lieutenant. The play succeeds and runs for twelve nights in a row, unusual under the repertory system of the time.
 * August – The Playhouse to Be Let, an anthology of work by Sir William Davenant, is performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London.
 * December 1 – John Dryden marries Elizabeth, sister of Sir Robert Howard. Dryden and John Aubrey become Fellows of the Royal Society in the same year.
 * unknown dates
 * In the Electorate of Bavaria, a legal deposit law requires copies of all newly printed books to be deposited in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.
 * In England, Roger L'Estrange is appointed Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses and licenser of the press.
 * The Third Folio of Shakespeare's plays is published by Philip Chetwinde in London, adding Pericles and six plays of Shakespeare Apocrypha to the canon.
 * Publication takes place at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Eliot Indian Bible" (Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God) makes it the first complete Bible published in the Americas. The translation by the English-born Puritan missionary John Eliot of the Geneva Bible from English into the Massachusett language (Natic or Wômpanâak) variety of the Algonquian languages is printed by Samuel Green.

Prose

 * Molière – La Critique de l'école des femmes
 * John Spencer – 

Drama

 * Anonymous – The Wandering Whores' Complaint for Want of Trading (published)
 * Miguel de Barrios – El Espanjol de Oran
 * Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – The General
 * George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (after Jonson) – Sir Politic Would-Be
 * Pedro Calderón de la Barca
 * El divino Orfeo
 * El mágico prodigioso
 * Henry Cary – The Marriage Night
 * Abraham Cowley – The Cutter of Coleman Street
 * William Davenant
 * The Playhouse to Be Let (performed)
 * The Siege of Rhodes Part 2 (published)
 * John Dryden – The Wild Gallant
 * Andreas Gryphius
 * Absurda Comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz
 * Papinianus
 * Edward Howard – The Usurper (first performance; published 1667)
 * James Howard – The English Monsieur
 * Sir Robert Howard – The Committee
 * "T. P." – A Witty Combat, or the Female Victor (once attributed to Thomas Porter)
 * Thomas Porter – The Villain
 * Richard Rhodes – Flora's Vagaries
 * Sir Robert Stapylton
 * The Stepmother
 * The Slighted Maid
 * Sir Samuel Tuke – The Adventures of Five Hours (adapted from Antonio Coello's Los empeños de seis horas)

Poetry

 * Abraham Cowley – Verses Upon Several Occasions
 * Sir William Davenant – Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty

Births

 * February 12 – Cotton Mather, New England Puritan author and minister (died 1728)
 * March 6 – Francis Atterbury, English man of letters and bishop (died 1732
 * March 22 – August Hermann Francke, German theologian (died 1727)
 * May 20 – William Bradford, American printer (died 1752)
 * Unknown dates
 * William King, English poet (died 1712)
 * George Stepney, English poet (died 1707)
 * Probable year of birth – Delarivier Manley, English novelist, playwright and pamphleteer (died 1724)

Deaths

 * April 5 – John Norton, English religious writer (born 1606)
 * April 17 – David Questiers, Dutch poet (born 1623)
 * July 14 – Elizabeth Egerton, countess of Bridgwater, English essayist (childbirth, born 1626)
 * October 31 – Théophile Raynaud, French theologian (born 1583)
 * December 5 – Severo Bonini, Italian music writer (born 1582)
 * Unknown date – Claude de Bourdeille, comte de Montrésor, French memoirist (born c. 1606)