1624 in literature

Events

• January 18 – The King's Men perform William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at Whitehall Palace.
• August 5–14 – The King's Men perform Thomas Middleton's satire A Game at Chess at the Globe Theatre, London, until it is suppressed in view of its allusions to the Spanish Match.
• August 26 – Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, requires the legal deposit of new books to the Hof-Bibliothek' in Vienna, the modern-day Austrian National Library.
• December – The King's Men get into further trouble for performing Philip Massinger's The Spanish Viceroy without a licence from the Master of the Revels.
• December 20 – The King's Men provide Sir Henry Herbert with a "submission," a written apology, signed by each actor who had taken part in The Spanish Viceroy earlier in the month. The signatories include Robert Benfield, George Birch, John Lowin, Thomas Pollard, John Rice, Richard Robinson, William Rowley, John Shank, Richard Sharpe, Eliard Swanston, and Joseph Taylor.

  New books

Prose

• Anonymous – The Origin of Idolatry
• Jean Louis Guez de Balzac – Lettres
• Jacob Boehme – The Way of Christ
• George Carleton – Astrologomania, the Madnesse of Astrologes; or, an Examination of Sir Christopher Heydon's Booke, intituled, A Defence of Judiciarie Astrologie
• Philipp Clüver – Italia Antiqua
• John Donne – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
• Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury – De Veritate
• Tirso de Molina – Cigarrales de Toledo
• Jens Munk – Navigatio Septentrionalis
• Martin Opitz – Buch von den Teutschen Poetery
• Captain John Smith – The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles
• Edward Winslow – Good Newes from New England, or a True Relation of Things very Remarkable at the Plantation of Plimouth in New England
• Sir Henry Wotton – The Elements of Architecture

  Drama

• Anonymous – Nero
• Robert Davenport – The City Nightcap
• Thomas Drue – The Duchess of Suffolk
• John Ford and Thomas Dekker – The Sun's Darling
• Ben Jonson – Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion
• Philip Massinger
• *The Parliament of Love
• *The Bondman
• Thomas Middleton – A Game at Chess

  Poetry

• Bernardo de Balbuena – El Bernardo

  Births

• February 11 – Ivan Ančić, Croatian theologian
• October 30 – Paul Pellisson, French historian
• November 2 – Edward Howard, English playwright and poet
• unknown date – Francesc Mulet, Spanish comic writer

  Deaths

• February 4 – Vicente Espinel, Spanish writer and musician
• February 13 – Stephen Gosson, English satirist
• February 16 – Luis de la Puente, Spanish theologian
• February 24 – Paul Laurentius, German theologian
• August – George Wyatt, English biographer
• November 17 – Jakob Böhme, German theologian
• December 9 – Flaminio Scala, Italian actor and dramatist
• December 15 – Jerónimo Bautista Lanuza, Spanish bishop and writer
• unknown date – Mark Ridley, English lexicographer of Russian and physician