1596 in literature

Events

• January 20 – The first complete edition of The Faerie Queene is published in six books.
• February – James Burbage buys the disused Blackfriars Theatre from Sir William More for £600, but is prevented from using it for theater by the opposition of wealthy influential neighbors.
• June 22 – Lord Hunsdon dies; his place as Lord Chamberlain will be taken by William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, who is sympathetic to the Puritans and hostile to the English Renaissance theatre. With Cobham's allowance, Thomas Skinner, Lord Mayor of the City of London bans players from the City and tears down the inn-theaters, the Bel Savage Inn, the Cross Keys Inn, and others. Cobham dies the next year, 1597.
• date unknown – The novel Jin Ping Mei by "Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng" circulates in manuscript in China.

  New books

Prose

• Thomas Harriot – Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
• Richard Johnson – The Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendom

  Drama

• Anonymous – Captain Thomas Stukeley
• William Burton – De Amoribus Perinthii et Tyanthes
• George Chapman – The Blind Beggar of Alexandria
• Antoine de Montchrestien – Sophonisbe
• Lope de Vega
• *Los comendadores de Córdoba
• *Los donaires de Matico
• *:es:El marqués de Mantua|El marqués de Mantua
• *El remedio en la desdicha
• Thomas Kyd – The Raigne of King Edward the Third
• William Shakespeare – Henry IV, Part 1

  Poetry

• Thomas Campion – Poemata
• Bartholomew Griffin – Fidessa
• Francisco Rodrigues Lobo – Romances
• Thomas Nashe – Have With You to Saffron Walden
• Edmund Spenser – Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

  Births

• March 31 – René Descartes, French philosopher
• August 18 – Jean Bolland, Flemish Jesuit writer
• September
• *Moses Amyraut, French Protestant theologian
• *James Shirley, English dramatist
• September 4 – Constantijn Huygens, Dutch poet
• Unknown date – Lucas Holstenius, German humanist
• Probable year of birth – Udriște Năsturel, Wallachian scholar and poet

  Deaths

• February 16 – Friedrich Sylburg, German classical scholar
• February 19 – Blaise de Vigenère, French cryptographer, diplomat, scientist, and author
• August 11 ' – Hamnet Shakespeare, English schoolboy, son of William
• October 3 – Florent Chrestien, French writer
• November 1 – Pierre Pithou, French lawyer and scholar
• November 9 ' – George Peele, English dramatist and poet
• Unknown date
• *Madeleine de l’Aubespine, French poet and patron
• *Jean Bodin, French political philosopher
• Probable year of death – Henry Willobie, English poet