1690 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1690.

Events

 * December 10 – Playwright Henry Nevil Payne is tortured for his role in the Montgomery Plot to restore James II to the throne — the last time a political prisoner is subjected to torture in Britain.
 * Colley Cibber becomes an actor with the Drury Lane company.

Prose

 * Nicholas Barbon – A Discourse of Trade
 * Pierre Bayle (attributed) – Avis important aux réfugiés
 * Sir Thomas Browne (posthumously) – A Letter to a Friend
 * Antoine Furetière (posthumously) – Dictionnaire universel
 * John Locke
 * An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (dated this year but published 1689)
 * Two Treatises of Government
 * Samuel Pepys – Memoires of the Navy
 * Baro Urbigerus – Aphorismi Urbigerani

Drama

 * John Bancroft – King Edward III, with the Fall of Mortimer, Earl of March
 * Aphra Behn (posthumously) – The Widow Ranter
 * Thomas Betterton – The Prophetess, or The History of Dioclesian (adapted from Fletcher and Massinger's The Prophetess, with music by Henry Purcell)
 * Edmé Boursault – Esope à la ville
 * Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Mr. Anthony
 * John Crowne – The English Friar
 * John Dryden
 * Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias
 * Don Sebastian
 * William Mountfort – The Successful Strangers
 * George Powell
 * Alphonso, King of Naples
 * The Treacherous Brothers
 * Elkanah Settle – Distress'd Innocence, or The Princess of Persia
 * Thomas Shadwell – The Scourers
 * Thomas Southerne – Sir Anthony Love
 * "W. C." – The Rape Reveng'd, or the Spanish Revolution (adapted from William Rowley's All's Lost by Lust)

Poetry

 * Thomas D'Urfey:
 * Collin's Walk Through London and Westminster
 * New Poems
 * See also 1690 in poetry
 * Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza – Obras líricas y cómicas, divinas y humanas

Births

 * February 3 – Richard Rawlinson, English antiquary and cleric (died 1755)
 * September 12 – Peter Dens, Netherlandish theologian (died 1775)
 * 1689/90 – Susanna Highmore, English poet (died 1750)

Deaths

 * March 21 – Henry Teonge, English diarist and cleric (born 1621)
 * May 5 – Theodore Haak, German-born English translator and natural philosopher (born 1605)
 * May 12 – John Rushworth, English author of Historical Collections (born c. 1612)
 * October 3 – Robert Barclay, Scottish Quaker writer (born c. 1648)
 * October 25 – Cornelius Hazart, Dutch Jesuit controversialist (born 1617)
 * Unknown date – Franciscus Plante, Dutch poet (born 1613)
 * Probable year of death – Jeremias Felbinger, German writer, teacher and lexicographer (born 1616)