1631 in literature

Events

• January 9 – Love's Triumph Through Callipolis, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at Whitehall Palace.
• January 11 – The Master of the Revels in England refuses to license Philip Massinger's new play, Believe as You List, because of its seditious content; it is first performed in a revised version on May 7.
• February 5 – Puritan minister and theologian Roger Williams emigrates from England to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• February 22 – Chloridia, the year's second Jonson/Jones masque, is performed.
• June 10 – The King's Men perform Pericles, Prince of Tyre at the Globe Theatre.
• The young Blaise Pascal moves with his family to Paris.
• Thomas Hobbes is employed as a tutor by the Cavendish family, to teach the future Earl of Devonshire.
• Publication of the "Wicked Bible" by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, an edition of the King James Version of the Bible in which a typesetting erratum leaves the seventh of the Ten Commandments with the word not omitted from the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery". Copies are withdrawn and about a year later the publishers are called to the Star Chamber, fined £300 and have their licence to print revoked.

  New books

Prose

• Johann Philipp Abelin – Arma Suecica, volume 1
• Moses Amyraut – Traité des religions
• Collected works of Jacobus Arminius published posthumously in Frankfurt
• Robert Fludd – Medicina Catholica
• Thomas Harriot – Artis analyticae praxis
• James Mabbe – Celestina, or the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea, a 300-page closet drama or "novel in dialogue," translated from the Spanish-language original of Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina
• Wicked Bible, a reprint of the King James Bible notable for typographical errors
• William Oughtred – Clavis mathematicae

  Drama

• Anonymous – Fair Em published
• George Chapman – Caesar and Pompey published
• Henry Chettle – Hoffman published
• Lope de Vega
• *Punishment without Revenge
• *La noche de San Juan
• Thomas Goffe – The Raging Turk published
• Peter Hausted – Senile Odium
• Thomas Heywood – The Fair Maid of the West, Parts 1 and 2
• Ben Jonson
• *Chloridia
• *Love's Triumph Through Callipolis
• Ralph Knevet – Rhodon and Iris
• James Mabbe – The Spanish Bawd published
• Jean Mairet – La Silvanire, ou la Morte-vive
• Shackerley Marmion – Holland's Leaguer runs for a highly-unusual six straight performances
• John Marston, with William Barkstead & Lewis Machin – The Insatiate Countess published
• Philip Massinger
• *Believe as You List
• *The Emperor of the East
• Thomas May – Antigone, the Theban Princess published
• Jean Rotrou – L'Hypocondriaque
• James Shirley
• *The Traitor
• *Love's Cruelty
• *The Humorous Courtier
• *Love Tricks published as The School of Compliment
• Aurelian Townshend – Albion's Triumph
• Robert Ward – Fucus Histriomastix
• Arthur Wilson – The Swisser
• Richard Zouche – The Sophister

  Poetry

• Richard Braithwait – The English Gentleman

  Births

• January 1 – Katharine Philips, English poet
• February 22 – Peder Syv, Danish philologist, folklorist and priest
• March 16 – René Le Bossu, French critic
• April – John Phillips, English satirist and nephew of John Milton
• July 15 – Richard Cumberland, English philosopher
• August 9 – John Dryden, English poet and dramatist
• October 18 – Michael Wigglesworth, English-born American poet and minister
• Unknown date – John Barret, English religious writer and Presbyterian minister

  Deaths

• February 7 – Gabriel Harvey, English poet and author
• March 31 – John Donne, English poet and Dean of St Paul's
• May 6 – Robert Bruce Cotton, English antiquary and founder of Cotton Library
• May 25 – Samuel Harsnett, English religious writer and archbishop
• May 26 – Enrico Caterino Davila, Italian historian, murdered
• July 28 – Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, Spanish dramatist
• September 22 – Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Italian archbishop and founder of Biblioteca Ambrosiana
• October 26 – Lewis Bayly, Welsh or Scottish-born religious writer and bishop writing in English
• November 29 – Edmond Richer, French theologian
• December 23 – Michael Drayton, English poet