1681 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1681.Events
Prose
- Thomas Burnet – Telluris Theoria Sacra, or Sacred Theory of the Earth
- Chikkupadhyaya – Kamalachala Mahatmya
- Robert Knox – An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon
- Anne Lefèvre – Anacreon and Sappho
- Hiob Ludolf – Historia Aethiopica
- William Penn – True Spiritual Liberty
- John Pordage – Treatise of Eternal Nature with Her Seven Essential Forms
Drama
- Aphra Behn
- *The False Count
- *The Roundheads
- John Crowne – Thyestes
- Thomas d'Urfey – Sir Barnaby Whigg
- Edward Ravenscroft – The London Cuckolds
- Thomas Shadwell – The Lancashire Witches
- Nahum Tate – adaptations from Shakespeare
- *The History of King Lear
- *The Ingratitude of a Common-Wealth
- *The Sicilian Usurper
- Agustín Moreto – Parte III de comedias
- Antonio de Solís y Rivadeneyra – El amor al uso
Poetry
- Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Poems on Most of the Festivals of the Church
- John Dryden – Absalom and Achitophel
- Andrew Marvell – Miscellaneous Poems
Births
- March 18 – Esther Johnson, the "Stella" of Jonathan Swift
- July 12 – Abigail Williams, central character in Arthur Miller's 1953 play, The Crucible
- November 17 – Pierre François le Courayer, Roman Catholic theologian
Deaths
- January 16 – Olivier Patru, French legal historian and translator
- January 28 – Richard Allestree, English scholar and cleric
- May 25 – Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish dramatist and poet
- July 8 – Georg Neumark, German poet and hymn-writer
- September 17 – John Lacy, English playwright
- September 27 – Jacob Masen, German Jesuit writer
