1558 in literature

Events

• November 17 – The Elizabethan era begins in England: the Catholic Queen Mary dies and is succeeded by her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth.
• unknown dates
• *Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, sets up in his Munich Residenz a court library that is the predecessor of the Bavarian State Library, with the collection of the late Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter at its core.
• *Italian exile Pietro Perna sets up his printing press in Basel, Switzerland.

  New books

Prose

• John Dee – Propaedeumata Aphoristica
• Ser Giovanni Fiorentino – Il Pecorone
• John Knox – '
• Marguerite de Navarre – Heptaméron
• Giambattista della Porta – Magia Naturalis
• Thomas Watson – '

  Drama

• Jacques Grévin – La Trésorière

  Poetry

• See 1558 in poetry

  Births

• July 11 – Robert Greene, English writer
• November 3 – Thomas Kyd, English dramatist
• Probable year – Thomas Lodge, English writer

  Deaths

• January 28 – Jacob Micyllus, German writer
• May 17 – Francisco de Sá de Miranda, Portuguese poet
• August 11 – Justus Menius, German Lutheran theologian
• September 5 – Robert Broke, English legal writer
• October – Mellin de Saint-Gelais, French poet