1678 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1678.

Events

 * February – English dramatist Thomas Otway, perhaps escaping from an unhappy love affair with his leading actress, obtains a commission in an English regiment serving in the Franco-Dutch War and is sent in July to Flanders.
 * February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, partly written while he was imprisoned for unlicensed preaching, is published in London.
 * March – The novel La Princesse de Clèves, presumed to be by Madame de La Fayette, is published in Paris. It is set in 1558–1559 and an early example of a psychological novel.
 * November – The English printer Joseph Moxon becomes the first tradesman to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Prose

 * Manuel Ambrosio de Filguera – Si sea lícito hacer los autos sacramentales en las iglesias
 * John Barret – The Christian Temper, or, A Discourse Concerning the Nature and Properties of the Graces of Sanctification
 * Jacob Boehme – Mysterium Magnum, oder Erkärung über das Erste Buch Mosis (Amsterdam & Frankfurt; contains a portrait of Boehme by N. van Werd)
 * John Bunyan – The Pilgrim's Progress
 * Ralph Cudworth – The True Intellectual System of the Universe
 * Madame de La Fayette (anonymously) – La Princesse de Clèves
 * Sir Thomas Herbert – Threnodia Carolina
 * Thomas Hobbes – Decameron Physiologicum
 * Josiah King – The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas Together with his Clearing by the Jury
 * The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-Shire (a woodcut showing what is alleged to be the first crop circle)
 * The Works of Geber, Englished by Richard Russell.
 * Thomas Rymer – The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered
 * Jacob Spon – Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant
 * Aernout van Overbeke – De rym-wercken

Drama

 * Anonymous
 * Actio Curiosa
 * John Banks – The Destruction of Troy
 * Aphra Behn – Sir Patient Fancy
 * William Chamberlayne – Wits Led by the Nose, or a Poet's Revenge published
 * Thomas Corneille – Le Comte d'Essex
 * John Dryden
 * All for Love
 * The Kind Keeper
 * Thomas d'Urfey
 * Trick for Trick
 * Squire Oldsapp
 * Edward Howard – The Man of Newmarket
 * Nathaniel Lee – Mithridates, King of Pontus
 * John Leanerd
 * The Counterfeits
 * The Rambling Justice
 * Thomas Otway – Friendship in Fashion
 * Samuel Pordage – The Siege of Babylon
 * Edward Ravenscroft – The English Lawyer (adapted from George Ruggle's Latin play Ignoramus)
 * Thomas Rawlins – Tunbridge Wells
 * Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia (adapted from Shakespeare's play)
 * Thomas Shadwell
 * The History of Timon of Athens the Man-Hater
 * A True Widow
 * Nahum Tate – Brutus of Alba

Poetry

 * Anne Bradstreet – Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (posthumously published)
 * Samuel Butler – Hudibras, Part 3
 * Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter – Själens aandelige Sangoffer ("The Souls Spiritual Offering of Song")

Births

 * January 10 – Paul Gabriel Antoine, French theologian (died 1743)
 * July – Thomas Hearne, editor of medieval manuscripts (died 1735)
 * December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian (died 1743)
 * Unknown dates
 * Thomas Sherlock, English religious writer and bishop (died 1761)
 * William Wogan, Welsh religious writer in English (died 1758)

Deaths

 * January 16 – Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé, French writer and salonnière (born 1599)
 * March 10 – Jean de Launoy, French historian (born 1603)
 * April 12 – Sir Thomas Stanley, English poet, writer and translator (born 1625)
 * May 4 – Abraham Woodhead, English Catholic writer (born 1609)
 * May 14 or 15 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar (born 1607)
 * August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician (born 1621)
 * August 17 – Guillaume Herincx, Netherlandish theologian (born 1621)
 * November 21 – Robert Thoroton, English antiquary (born 1623)
 * Unknown date – Theophilus Gale, English theologian (born 1628)
 * Probable date – Richard Flecknoe English dramatist and poet (born c. 1600)