1668 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1668.

Events

 * c. February – The English Parliament and bishops seek to suppress Thomas Hobbes' treatise Leviathan.
 * September 9 – Molière's comedy The Miser (L'Avare) is first performed, at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré) in Paris.
 * unknown date – Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler goes into its fourth edition.

Prose

 * Juan Caramuel – Primus calamus
 * Meric Casaubon – Of Credulity and Incredulity
 * Josiah Child – Brief Observations concerning Trade and the Interest of Money
 * Jean Claude – Réponse au livre de P. Nouet sur l'eucharistie
 * Jan Comenius – The Way of Light
 * John Dryden – Essay of Dramatick Poesie
 * Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman – Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing
 * Richard Flecknoe – Sir William Davenant's Voyage to the Other World
 * Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen – Simplicius Simplicissimus (first picaresque novel in German, dated 1669 but probably published this year)
 * Johannes Hevelius – Cometographia
 * Peter Heylin – Cyprianus Anglicanus (biography of William Laud)
 * Urban Hjärne – Stratonice (completed)
 * Adriaan Koerbagh – Een Bloemhof
 * Henry Neville – The Isle of Pines
 * William Penn – Truth Exalted
 * Francisco Santos – Periquillo el de las gallineras
 * John Wilkins – An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language

Drama

 * Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery
 * Tryphon (performed)
 * Henry V (published)
 * Mustapha (published)
 * Margaret Cavendish – Plays, Never Before Printed, Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Excellent Princess, the Duchess of Newcastle (closet dramas)
 * Sir William Davenant – The Man's the Master (a translation of Paul Scarron's Jodelet, ou le maître valet)
 * John Dryden – An Evening's Love
 * George Etherege – She Would If She Could
 * Sir Robert Howard – The Great Favourite or the Duke of Lerma
 * Molière
 * L'Avare (The Miser)
 * George Dandin ou le Mari confondu
 * Sir Charles Sedley – The Mulberry-Garden
 * Thomas Shadwell – The Sullen Lovers

Poetry

 * Abraham Cowley – Poemata Latina (posthumous)
 * Sir John Denham – Poems and Translations
 * Jean de La Fontaine – Fables choisies, mises en vers
 * Georg Stiernhielm – Musæ Suethizantes

Births

 * May 8 – Alain-René Lesage, French novelist and playwright (died 1747)
 * September – Joseph Bingham, scholar (died 1723)
 * November (baptised) – Thomas Woolston, deist writer (died 1731)
 * November 11 – Johann Albert Fabricius (died 1736)
 * December 21 – Herman Boerhaave, humanist (died 1738)

Deaths

 * April 7 – Sir William Davenant, poet and playwright (born 1606)
 * May 21 – Josephus Adjutus, theologian (born c. 1602)
 * August 9 – Jakob Balde, Latinist poet and academic (born 1604)
 * November 17 – Joseph Alleine, Nonconformist writer (born 1634)
 * December 11 – Marquise-Thérèse de Gorla, actress (born 1633)
 * December 22 – Stephen Daye, first American printer (born 1594)
 * December 23 – Martin Baučer, Slovene historian (born 1595)