1663 in literature

Events

• February
• *The Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres is founded in Paris.
• *Katherine Philips' translation of Pierre Corneille's Pompée is produced successfully at the Theatre Royal, Dublin in Ireland, as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English and the first English play written by a woman to be performed on a professional stage. It is published in Dublin and London later in the year.
• February 24 – John Milton marries his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, 31 years his junior, at St Mary Aldermary in the City of London.
• May 7 – The King's Company inaugurates its new theatre, the first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, with a revival of Fletcher's The Humorous Lieutenant. The play succeeds and runs for twelve nights in a row, unusual under the repertory system of the time.
• August – The Playhouse to Be Let, an anthology of work by Sir William Davenant, is performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London.
• December 1 – John Dryden marries Elizabeth, sister of Sir Robert Howard. Dryden and John Aubrey become Fellows of the Royal Society in the same year.
• unknown dates
• *In the Electorate of Bavaria, a legal deposit law requires copies of all newly printed books to be deposited in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.
• *In England, Roger L'Estrange is appointed Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses and licenser of the press.
• *The Third Folio of Shakespeare's works are published by Philip Chetwinde in London, adding Pericles and six plays of Shakespeare Apocrypha to the canon.
• *Publication takes place at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Eliot Indian Bible" makes it the first complete Bible published in the Americas. The translation by the English-born Puritan missionary John Eliot of the Geneva Bible from English into the Massachusett language variety of the Algonquian languages is printed by Samuel Green.

  New books

Prose

• Molière – La Critique de l'école des femmes
• John Spencer –

  Drama

• Anonymous – The Wandering Whores' Complaint for Want of Trading
• Miguel de Barrios – El Espanjol de Oran
• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – The General
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca
• * El divino Orfeo
• * El mágico prodigioso
• Henry Cary – The Marriage Night
• Abraham Cowley – The Cutter of Coleman Street
• William Davenant
• *The Playhouse to Be Let
• *The Siege of Rhodes Part 2
• John Dryden – The Wild Gallant
• Andreas Gryphius
• *Absurda Comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz
• *Papinianus
• Edward Howard – The Usurper
• James Howard – The English Monsieur
• Sir Robert Howard – The Committee
• "T. P." – A Witty Combat, or the Female Victor
• Thomas Porter – The Villain
• Richard Rhodes – Flora's Vagaries
• Sir Robert Stapylton
• *The Stepmother
• *The Slighted Maid
• Sir Samuel Tuke – The Adventures of Five Hours

  Poetry

• Abraham Cowley – Verses Upon Several Occasions
• Sir William Davenant – Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty

  Births

• February 12 – Cotton Mather, New England Puritan author and minister
• March 6 – Francis Atterbury, English man of letters and bishop
• May 20 – William Bradford, American printer
• Unknown dates
• *William King, English poet
• *George Stepney, English poet
• Probable year of birth – Delarivier Manley, English novelist, playwright and pamphleteer

  Deaths

• April 5 – John Norton, English religious writer
• April 17 – David Questiers, Dutch poet
• July 14 – Elizabeth Egerton, countess of Bridgwater, English essayist
• October 31 – Théophile Raynaud, French theologian
• December 5 – Severo Bonini, Italian music writer
• Unknown date – Claude de Bourdeille, comte de Montrésor, French memoirist