1693 in literature

Events

• February 27 – March 17 – John Dunton publishes The Ladies' Mercury in London, the first periodical specifically for women.
• March – William Congreve's first play, the comedy The Old Bachelor, is performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.
• May – William Bradford prints the first book in New York, George Keith's New-England's Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsylvania.
• July 29 – Anthony Wood is condemned in the vice-chancellor's court of the University of Oxford for libels against Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. He is fined and banished from the university until he recants. The offending pages are burned.
• October – Congreve's comedy The Double Dealer is first performed at Drury Lane.
• unknown dates
• *Joseph Addison addresses an early poem to John Dryden.
• *Swedish scholar Petter Salan publishes in Upsala Fortissimorum pugilum Egilli et Asmundi historiam antqvo gothico sermone exaratam, the first printed edition of the 14th century Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana.
• *Venetian sea-captain Julije Balović compiles Pratichae Schrivaneschae, including a five-language multilingual glossary.

  New books

Fiction

• The Genuine Remains of Dr. Thomas Barlow
• Li Yu – The Carnal Prayer Mat
• The Third Part of the Pilgrim's Progress
• Catherine Trotter – Olinda's Adventures; or, The Amours of a Young Lady
• Sir Thomas Urquhart and Peter Anthony Motteux – first complete English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel

• Drama

• John Bancroft – Henry the Second, King of England; With the death of Rosamond
• William Congreve
• *The Old Bachelor
• *The Double Dealer
• Thomas D'Urfey – The Richmond Heiress, or A Woman Once in the Right
• Henry Higden – The Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot
• George Powell – A Very Good Wife
• Elkanah Settle – The New Athenian Comedy
• Thomas Southerne – The Maid's Last Prayer, or Any Rather Than Fail

  Poetry

• John Dryden – Examen Poeticum: Being the Third Part of Miscellany Poems

  Non-fiction

• John Dennis – The Impartial Critick
• John Dryden – A Discourse Concerning the Origin and Progress of Satire
• John Evelyn – The Compleat Gard'ner
• August Hermann Francke – Manuductio ad lectionem Scripturae Sacrae
• Robert Gould – The Corruption of the Times by Money
• John Locke – Some Thoughts Concerning Education
• Cotton Mather – Wonders of the Invisible World
• William Penn –
• Thomas Rymer – A Short View of Tragedy
• Gabrielle Suchon – Traité de la morale et de la politique
• Samuel Wesley – The Life of Our Blessed Lord

  Births

• March 5 – Johann Jakob Wettstein, Swiss theologian
• May 10 – John Fox, English biographer
• June 17 - Johann Georg Walch, German theologian
• Unknown dates
• *Fray Casimiro Diaz, O.S.A., Spanish Augustinian friar and historian
• *Arthur Young, English religious writer and cleric
• probable – Eliza Haywood, English dramatist, journalist and novelist

  Deaths

• April 9 – Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, French memoirist
• May 25 – Madame de La Fayette, French writer
• May 27 – John Spencer, English scholar and cleric
• August – Charles Blount, English deist author
• September 9 – Ihara Saikaku, Japanese poet and author of "floating-world" fiction