1670 in literature

Events

• January – Françoise-Marguerite, daughter of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, marries the Comte de Grignan.
• August 18 – John Dryden is appointed historiographer royal in England.
• September 20 – Mrs Aphra Behn's first play, The Forced Marriage, is produced at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London by the Duke's Company, with Thomas Betterton in the lead.
• October 14 – The première of Molière's comedy Le Bourgeois gentilhomme is performed by his troupe with himself in the title rôle, before the French royal court at the Château de Chambord, with incidental music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.
• November 21 – The première of Racine's tragedy Berenice takes place with the Comédiens du Roi at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.
• unknown date – Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest known surviving book in English by a woman is printed for the first time, in an edition by Serenus de Cressy.

  New books

Prose

• Charles Cotton – Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque
• Madame de La Fayette – Zayde
• Fulke Greville – The Remains of Sir Fulke Greville Lord Brooke
• Honcho Tsugan
• Pierre Daniel Huet – Traitté de l'origine des romans
• Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England
• Julian of Norwich – Revelations of Divine Love
• Gilles Ménage – Dictionnaire étymologique
• Juan de Palafox y Mendoza – Historia de la conquista de la China por el Tartaro
• Blaise Pascal – Pensées
• William Penn – The Great Cause of Liberty of Conscience
• John Ray – English Proverbs
• Thomas Tenison – The Creed of Mr. Hobbes Examined
• Izaak Walton – Life of George Herbert
• Leonard Willan – The Exact Politician, or Complete Statesman
• María de Ágreda – Mística ciudad de Dios y vida de la Virgen manifestada por ella misma
• Diego de Saavedra Fajardo – República literaria

  Drama

• Aphra Behn – The Forced Marriage
• Thomas Betterton – The Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife
• John Caryll – Sir Salomon, or the Cautious Coxcomb
• John Dryden – The Conquest of Granada
• Edward Howard – The Women's Conquest
• Molière – Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
• Jean Racine – Bérénice
• Thomas Shadwell – The Humorists
• Juan Bautista Diamante – Parte I de comedias

  Poetry

• Francisco de Quevedo – Las tres musas últimas castellanas

  Births

• January 2 – Thomas Yalden, English poet, translator and clergyman
• January 24 – William Congreve, English dramatist
• April 23 – Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos, English historian and travel writer
• November 15 – Bernard Mandeville, Dutch-born English satirist and philosopher
• November 30 – John Toland, Irish controversialist
• December 14 – Jean-Baptiste Dubos, French historian
• unknown date – Laurence Echard, English historian (died 1730

  Deaths

• March 10 – Ludovicus a S. Carolo, French Carmelite scholar, writer and bibliographer
• June 14 – François Annat, French Jesuit theologian
• August 7 – Ignacio de Arbieto, Peruvian philosopher and historian
• October 27 – Vavasor Powell, Welsh Puritan writer and preacher
• November 15 – John Amos Comenius, Czech teacher and author
• December John Sparrow, translator
• December 11 – Thomas Adams, English scholar and theologian