1592 in literature

Events

• February 5–7 – Ulysses Redux, a Latin play by William Gager, is staged by members of Christ Church, Oxford. Two days later, they revive Gager's 1583 Latin play Rivales.
• February 26 – The first firmly recorded performance of Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta is given by Lord Strange's Men in London.
• June 23 – The London theatres close and apart from a brief spell around January 1593 remain so for about 16 months due to an epidemic of bubonic plague.
• September 3 – The English writer Robert Greene dies in London of a "banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herring", having apparently completed Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, including a reference to "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers", taken to be the first published reference to Shakespeare as a playwright.
• September 26 – Rivales is performed again by members of Christ Church, with Queen Elizabeth I of England in the audience, during her second visit to the University of Oxford.
• October–December – Pembroke's Men, an English playing company, is known to be in existence, acting in Leicester and at Court in London.
• December 18 – An entry in the Stationers' Register may refer to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, perhaps marking the year of its first performance.

  New books

Prose

• Antonio Agustin – Dialoghi intorno alle medaglie inscrittioni et attre antichità, with woodcuts by Geronima Parasole
• Isaac Casaubon – New edition of Theophrastus's Characteres
• Blaise de Montluc – Commentaires de Messire Blaise de Montluc
• Robert Greene
• *The Black Books Messenger
• *A Disputation Between a Hee Conny-Catcher and a Shee Conny-Catcher
• *The Third and Last Part of Conycatching
• *Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance
• *Greene's Vision, Written at the Instant of his Death
• *Philomela
• *A Quip for an Upstart Courtier
• Muhammad al-Idrisi – De geographia universali or Kitāb Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī dhikr al-amṣār wa-al-aqṭār wa-al-buldān wa-al-juzur wa-al-madā’ in wa-al-āfāq
• Richard Johnson – Nine Worthies of London
• Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer – Thresoor der Zeevaert
• Wu Cheng'en – Journey to the West

  Drama

• Anonymous – Arden of Faversham
• Anonymous – A Knack to Know a Knave
• William Gager – Ulysses Redux
• Thomas Kyd – The Spanish Tragedy
• John Lyly – Gallathea and Midas published
• Christopher Marlowe – Edward II
• Thomas Nashe – Summer's Last Will and Testament
• William Shakespeare – The Taming of the Shrew

  Poetry

• Henry Constable – Diana
• Michael Drayton – The Shepherd's Garland
• Gabriel Harvey – Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets

  Births

• January 16 – Henry King, English poet and bishop
• January 22 – Pierre Gassendi, French philosopher and scientist
• March 28 – John Amos Comenius, Czech teacher and writer
• April 4 – Abraham Elzevir, Dutch printer
• May 8 – Francis Quarles, English poet
• July 10 – Pierre d'Hozier, French historian
• August 1 – François le Métel de Boisrobert, French poet

  Deaths

• July 22 – Ludwig Rabus, German Lutheran theologian
• September 3 – Robert Greene, English writer
• September 13 – Michel de Montaigne, French essayist
• September 26 – Thomas Watson, English lyric poet writing in English and Latin

• Amadis Jamyn, French poet