1639 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1639.

Events

c. January – The first printing press in British North America is launched in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Stephen Daye.
February 14 – French writers Jacques Esprit and François de La Mothe Le Vayer are elected to the Académie française.
May 21 – The King's Men act John Fletcher's The Mad Lover in London.
December – Blaise Pascal's family move to Rouen.^[1]
December 7 – Francisco de Quevedo is arrested and imprisoned at León, Spain.^[2]
unknown dates
- Simon Dach becomes professor of poetry at the University of Königsberg.
- Archbishop William Laud donates the manuscript of the Peterborough Chronicle to the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
- Thomas Heywood writes Londini Status Pacatus, the Lord Mayor of the City of London's annual pageant.^[3] It will be the last such in London for 15 years, due to the English Civil War, but will resume under the Commonwealth.

Jean du Vergier de Hauranne – Théologie familière, ou Instruction de ce que le Chrétien doit croire et faire en cette vie pour être sauvé
Francisco de Quevedo – La isla de los monopantos
Jan Marek Marci – De proportione motus seu regula sphygmica
Friedrich Spanheim – Commentaire historique de la vie et de la mort de . . Christofle Vicomte de Dohna
Henry Spelman (ed.) – Concilia, Decreta, Leges, Constitutiones in re Ecclesiarum Orbis Britannici (3 vols, containing many forgeries)^[4]

Lodowick Carlell – Arviragus and Philicia, Parts 1 and 2 (published)
George Chapman and James Shirley – The Tragedy of Chabot (published)
Aston Cockayne – A Masque at Bretbie
Pierre Corneille – L'Illusion comique, (published)
T. D. (authorship disputed) – The Bloody Banquet (published)
William Davenant – The Spanish Lovers
Robert Davenport – A New Trick to Cheat the Devil (published)
John Fletcher (posthumously)
- Monsieur Thomas (published)
- Wit Without Money (published)
Henry Glapthorne
- Argalus and Parthenia (published)
- Albertus Wallenstein (published)
Sir William Lower – The Phoenix in Her Flames
Philip Massinger – The Unnatural Combat published
Jasper Mayne – The City Match
James Shirley
- The Politician (performed)
- The Ball
- The Maid's Revenge
- The Changes, or Love in a Maze (published)
Sir John Suckling – Brennoralt, or the Discontented Colonel

February 6 – Daniel Georg Morhof, German critic (died 1691)
December 22 – Jean Racine, French dramatist (died 1699)
unknown dates
- Thomas Ellwood, English religious writer (died 1713)
- César Vichard de Saint-Réal, French novelist (died 1692)
probable – Charles Sedley, English wit and dramatist (died 1701)

January – Shackerley Marmion, English dramatist (born 1603)^[5]
January 23 – Francisco Maldonado de Silva, Argentinian poet (burned at stake, born 1592)
May 21 – Tommaso Campanella, Italian poet and theologian (born 1568)
August 4 – Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, New Spanish dramatist (born c. 1581)
August 20 – Martin Opitz von Boberfeld, German poet (born 1597)
October – Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland, English poet, translator and dramatist (born 1585)
November 26 – John Spottiswoode, Scottish historian (born 1565)^[6]
Possible date – John Ford, English dramatist and poet (born 1586)

Book: Great Inventors. Sura Books. 978-81-7478-595-4. 16.
Book: Germán Bleiberg. Maureen Ihrie. Janet Pérez. Dictionary of the Literature of the Iberian Peninsula. 1993. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-313-28732-9. 1330.
Book: Thomas Heywood. The golden age. 1611. The silver age. 1613. The brazen age. 1613. The first and second parts of the iron age. 1632. 1874. J. Pearson. 443.
Web site: Myths of the Early British Church . Fakes, Lies, and Forgeries: Rare Books and Manuscripts from the Arthur and Janet Freeman Bibliotheca Fictiva Collection . . Baltimore, MD. 2014 . 2017-09-06.
Book: Leslie Stephen. Sir Sidney Lee. DNB. 1893. Smith, Elder, & Company.
Book: Samuel Warren. Miscellanies, critical, imaginative, and juridical (1855). 1855. W. Blackwood. 361.