1607 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1607.

Literary Events and Publications of 1607

This article provides an overview of the significant literary events and notable publications that took place in 1607.

Events

January 22 – Just prior to his death, bookseller Cuthbert Burby transfers the rights to print The Taming of the Shrew to Nicholas Ling.

February 2 – The King’s Men perform The Devil’s Charter by Barnes at the English Court.

June 5 – Physician John Hall marries Susanna, the daughter of William Shakespeare.

September 5 – Hamlet is staged aboard the East India Company ship Red Dragon, commanded by Captain William Keeling, marking the first known performance of a Shakespearean play outside England in English, performed by amateurs.

September 30 – Richard II is performed aboard the Dragon.

Unknown dates

  • The first performance of the first wholly parodic play in English, The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont, takes place, albeit unsuccessfully, likely by child actors at the Blackfriars Theatre in London.
  • The King’s Revels Children are active as a playing company in London, with a repertoire that includes Cupid’s Whirligig by Edward Sharpham and The Family of Love by Thomas Middleton.

New Books

Prose

  • William Alabaster – Apparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi
  • John Cowell – The Interpreter (suppressed by the English House of Commons for excessive royalism)
  • Michael Drayton – The Legend of Great Cromwell
  • Antoine Loysel – Institutes coutumières
  • César Oudin – Thrésor des deux langues françoise et espagnole
  • Lawrence Twine – The Pattern of Painful Adventures, second edition; a source for Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • Honoré d’Urfé – L’Astrée (part 1)

Drama

  • William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling – The Monarchic Tragedies (second edition, adding The Alexandrean and Julius Caesar to closet dramas Croesus and Darius)
  • Anonymous – Claudius Tiberius Nero
  • Barnabe Barnes – The Devil’s Charter
  • Francis Beaumont – The Knight of the Burning Pestle
  • Beaumont and Fletcher – The Woman Hater (published, earliest of their collaborations to appear in print)
  • Thomas Campion – Lord Hay’s Masque
  • George Chapman – Bussy D’Ambois (published)
  • John Day, William Rowley, and George Wilkins – The Travels of the Three English Brothers
  • Thomas Dekker – The Whore of Babylon
  • Thomas Dekker and John Webster – Westward Ho and Northward Ho (published)
  • Dekker & Webster with others – Sir Thomas Wyatt (published)
  • Thomas Heywood – The Fair Maid of the Exchange (published)
  • Ben Jonson – Volpone (published)
  • John Marston – What You Will (published)
  • Thomas Middleton
    • Michaelmas Term (performed)
    • The Phoenix (published)
    • The Puritan (published as “written by W.S.”)
    • The Revenger’s Tragedy (published)
  • Edward Sharpham – Cupid’s Whirligig
  • Thomas Tomkis – Lingua (published)
  • George Wilkins – The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (published)

Poetry

  • Thomas Dekker – The Seven Deadly Sins of London

Births

  • March 8 – Johann von Rist, German poet (died 1667)
  • July 10 – Philippe Labbe, French Jesuit writer (died 1667)
  • October 4 – Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, Spanish dramatist (died c. 1660)
  • November 1 – Georg Philipp Harsdorffer, German poet and translator (died 1658)
  • November 5 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet (died 1678)
  • November 15 – Madeleine de Scudéry, French writer (died 1701)
  • Unknown dates
    • Alaol, Bengali poet (died 1673)
    • Antoine Gombaud, French essayist (died 1684)
    • Filadelfo Mugnos, Italian historian (died 1675)
    • Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, Chilean writer and soldier (died 1682)

Deaths

  • January 6 – Guidobaldo del Monte, Italian philosopher (born 1545)
  • May – Sir Edward Dyer, English poet (born 1543)
  • June – Thomas Newton, English physician, clergyman, poet, author and translator (born c. 1542)
  • June 19 – Johannes Bertelius, historian of Luxembourg (born 1544)
  • June 30 – Caesar Baronius, Italian ecclesiastical historian (born 1538)
  • July 6 – Achille Gagliardi, Italian theologian (born 1537)
  • July 7 – Penelope Rich, Lady Rich, English noblewoman, inspiration for Sir Philip Sidney’s “Stella” (born 1563)
  • October 31 – Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki, Polish philosopher (born c. 1540)
  • Unknown dates
    • Cuthbert Burby, English publisher and bookseller
    • Dinko Ranjina, Croatian poet (born 1536)
    • Probable year of death – Henry Chettle, English dramatist (born c. 1564)

References

For further reading, please refer to historical records and publications from the era.