1664 in literature

Events

• February – London publisher John Twyn is hanged, drawn and quartered, having been convicted of treason for distributing seditious literature.
• April 6 – Moses ben Isaac Bonems is the first signatory of the approbations to works given by the members of the Council of Four Lands at the Gramnitza fair.
• May 12 – Molière's comedy Tartuffe is performed in its original version as part of "The Pleasures of the Enchanted Island" at the court of King Louis XIV of France to mark the start of construction of the Palace of Versailles, but objections to its presentation of a hypocritical religious impostor ban it from later public presentation.
• June – Gazzetta di Mantova is first published in Mantua, Italy. By 2009 it will be the world's oldest private newspaper still published, and the oldest one continuously published in print.
• June 20 – Racine's tragedy La Thébaïde receives its first performance, by Molière's troupe at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
• October – Thomas Killigrew and the King's Company stage Killigrew's The Parson's Wedding with an all-female cast.
• November 5 – Sir William Davenant's "dramatic opera" Macbeth, adapted from Shakespeare's play, is performed for the first time.

  New books

Prose

• Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle –
• *Sociable Letters
• *Philosophical Letters
• Charles Cotton – The Compleat Gamester
• René Descartes – Traité de l'homme et de la formation du foetus
• John Evelyn – Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber
• Richard Flecknoe – A Discourse of the English Stage
• John Heydon
• *Psonthonpanchia
• *Theomagia, Part 3
• Lucy Hutchinson – Memoirs Of The Life Of Colonel Hutchinson
• Jeremy Taylor – Dissuasive from Popery
• Izaak Walton – The Compleat Angler, 3rd edition
• Francisco Manuel de Melo – Obras morales

  Drama

• Pedro Calderon de la Barca – La hija del aire
• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Henry V
• Lodowick Carlell – Heraclius, Emperor of the East published
• Sir William Davenant – The Rivals
• Pierre Corneille – Othon
• John Dryden – The Rival Ladies
• John Dryden and Sir Robert Howard – The Indian Queen
• George Etherege – The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub
• Edward Howard – The Usurper
• Thomas Killigrew – Comedies and Tragedies
• William Killigrew – Ormasdes, or Love and Friendship, Pandora, or the Converts and Selindra
• John Lacy – The Old Troop
• Molière – Tartuffe
• Katherine Philips – Translation of Corneille's Horace
• Thomas Porter – The Carnival
• Jean Racine – La Thébaide
• William Shakespeare – Second impression of the Third Folio, adding seven plays to the 36 of the First Folio and Second: Pericles, Prince of Tyre and six works from Shakespeare Apocrypha
• John Wilson
• *Andronicus Comnenius
• *The Projectors
• Joost van den Vondel – Adam in Ballingschap

  Poetry

• Samuel Butler – Hudibras Part 2
• Katherine Philips – Poems by the Incomparable Mrs. K.P.

  Births

• January 24 – Sir John Vanbrugh, English dramatist and architect
• July 21 – Matthew Prior, English poet and diplomat
• November 9 – Henry Wharton, English writer and librarian
• Probable year of birth
• *Charles Hopkins, Anglo-Irish poet and dramatist
• *William Mountfort, English actor and dramatist

  Deaths

• January 10 – Nicholas Culpeper, English herbalist, physician and astrologer
• January 20 – Isaac Ambrose, English Puritan writer
• June 22 – Katherine Philips, English poet, translator and woman of letters
• July 16 – Andreas Gryphius, German lyric poet and dramatist
• August 16 – James Heath, English Royalist historian
• August 23 – Jean Bagot, Jesuit theologian
• November 18 – Nikola Zrinski, Croatian/Hungarian military leader, statesman and poet
• Unknown date – Qian Qianyi, Chinese poet and social historian
• Probable year of death – Henry Robinson, merchant and writer