1686 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1686.

Events

 * January – John Dryden is recorded as having converted to Roman Catholicism.

Prose

 * Pierre Bayle – Philosophical Commentary (on religious freedom)
 * Bernard de Fontenelle
 * Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds)
 * L'Histoire des oracles
 * Gottfried Leibniz
 * Brevis Demonstratio Erroris Memorabilis Cartesii et Aliorum Circa Legem Naturae (A Brief Demonstration of the Memorable Error of Descartes and Others About the Law of Nature)
 * Discours de Métaphysique
 * Ihara Saikaku (井原 西鶴)
 * Twenty Cases of Unfilial Children (本朝二十不孝 Honchō Nijū Fukō)
 * The Life of an Amorous Woman (好色一代女 Kōshoku Ichidai Onna)
 * Thomas Sydenham – Schedula monitoria de novae febris ingressu (Schedule of Symptoms of Newly Arrived Fever)

Children

 * John Bunyan – A Book for Boys and Girls, or, Country Rhymes for Children

Drama

 * Aphra Behn and John Blow – The Lucky Chance
 * Thomas d'Urfey – The Banditti
 * Thomas Jevon – The Devil of a Wife

Poetry

 * Anne Killigrew (posthumously) – Poems

Births

 * January 17 – Archibald Bower, Scottish historian (died 1766)
 * August 12 – John Balguy, English philosopher (died 1748)
 * September 5 – Antoine Touron, French historian and biographer (died 1775)
 * unknown date – Alban Thomas, Welsh physician and antiquarian (died 1771)

Deaths

 * January 31 – Jean Mairet, French dramatist (born 1604)
 * February 6 – Dorothy White, English Quaker pamphleteer (born c. 1630)
 * February 10 – William Dugdale, English antiquary and herald (born 1605)
 * February 25 – Abraham Calovius, German Lutheran theologian (born 1612)
 * June 23 – Sir William Coventry, English statesman and author (born c. 1628)
 * July 10 – John Fell, English academic and bishop (born 1625)
 * August 13 – Louis Maimbourg, French Jesuit historian (born 1610)
 * November 25 – Nicolas Steno (Niels Steenson), Danish scientist (born 1638)
 * November 28 – Nicolas Letourneux, French religious writer (born 1640)
 * December 6 – Nicola Avancini, Italian Jesuit writer (born 1612)