1696 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1696.

Events

• January – Colley Cibber's play Love's Last Shift is first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. ^[1]
• March 5 – William Penn marries his second wife, Hannah Callowhill. ^[2]
• September – The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, stages The Female Wits, an anti-feminist satire targeting Mary Pix, Delarivier Manley and Catherine Trotter, the three significant women dramatists of the era. The play is a hit, and runs for three nights straight (unusual in the repertory system of the day). ^[3]
• November 21 – John Vanbrugh's first play, the comedy The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger , a sequel to Love's Last Shift, is first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with Cibber in the cast. ^[4]
• unknown date
  • The Tuscan poet Vincenzo da Filicaja becomes governor of Volterra.
  • Chapbook peddlers in England are required to hold a licence.

New books

Fiction

• John Aubrey – Miscellanies ^[5]
• Philip Ayres – The Revengeful Mistress
• Aphra Behn (died 1689) – The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn
• Charles Leslie – The Snake in the Grass
• Mary Pix – The Inhumane Cardinal; or, Innocence Betray'd (novel)
• John Suckling – The Works of Sir John Suckling
• John Tillotson – The Works of John Tillotson

Drama

• John Banks – Cyrus the Great, or The Tragedy of Love
• Aphra Behn – The Younger Brother
• Colley Cibber – Love's Last Shift ^[1]
• Thomas Dilke – The City Lady
• Thomas Doggett – The Country Wake ^[6]
• Thomas D'Urfey – The Comical History of Don Quixote. The Third Part
• George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne – The She-Gallants
• Joseph Harris – The City Bride; or, The Merry Cuckold (adapted from A Cure for a Cuckold ) ^[7]
• Charles Hopkins – Neglected Virtue ^[7]
• Delarivier Manley
  • The Lost Lover, or The Jealous Husband
  • The Royal Mischief
• Peter Anthony Motteux
  • Love's a Jest
  • She Ventures and He Wins ^[8]
• Mary Pix
  • The Spanish Wives
  • Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperour of the Turks ^[9]
• Edward Ravenscroft – The Anatomist, or the Sham Doctor
• Thomas Southerne – Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave: a tragedy (adapted from Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko - published)
• John Vanbrugh – The Relapse ^[4]

Poetry

• Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate – New Version of the Psalms of David
• John Dryden – An Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell (died 1695) ^[10]
• John Oldmixon – Poems on Several Occasions
• Elizabeth Singer Rowe – Poems on Several Occasions
• Nahum Tate – Miscellanea Sacra; or, Poems on Divine & Moral Subjects

Non-fiction

• Richard Baxter – Reliquiae Baxterianae (posthumous)
• John Bellers – Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry ^[11]
• Gerard Croese – The General History of the Quakers (translation)
• Judith Drake (attributed) – An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (anonymous)
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Analyse des infiniment petits pour l'intelligence des lignes courbes
• Delarivier Manley – Letters Written by Mrs. Manley
• William Penn – Primitive Christianity Revived in the Faith and Practice of the People called Quakers ^[2]
• John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby – The Character of Charles II, King of England
• John Toland – Christianity not Mysterious ^[12]
• William Whiston – A New Theory of the Earth

Births

• July 14 – William Oldys, English antiquary, bibliographer and poet (died 1761)
• September 25 – Madame du Deffand, French literary hostess (died 1780) ^[13]
• October 13 – John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey, English memoirist and courtier (died 1743)
• Unknown date – Matthew Green, English writer of light verse and customs official (died 1737)

Deaths

• January 3 – Mary Mollineux, English Quaker poet (born c.1651)
• March 14 – Jean Domat, French jurist (born 1625) ^[14]
• March 18 – Bonaventura Baron, Irish theologian, philosopher and writer in Latin (born 1610)
• April 17 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, French author (born 1626) ^[15]
• April 27 – Simon Foucher, French polemic philosopher (born 1644)
• May 10 – Jean de La Bruyère, French essayist (born 1645) ^[16]
• June 9 – Antoine Varillas, French historian (born 1626) ^[17]
• August 9 – Wacław Potocki, Polish nobleman (Szlachta), moralist, Baroque poet and writer (born 1621)
• September 8 – Henry Birkhead, English academic, lawyer, Latin poet and founder of the Oxford Chair of Poetry (born 1617)
• November 26 – Gregório de Matos, Brazilian Baroque poet (born 1636)
• December 31 – Samuel Annesley, English Puritan minister noted for his sermons (born c.1620) ^[18]
• Unknown dates
  • Jón Magnússon, Icelandic writer (born c. 1610)
  • Gesshū Sōko (月舟宗胡), Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher, poet and calligrapher (born 1618)

References

1. Philip H. Highfill; Kalman A. Burnim; Edward A. Langhans (1975). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800: Cabanel to Cory. SIU Press. p. 216. ISBN   978-0-8093-0692-3.
2. William Penn (1857). Primitive Christianity Revived in the Faith and Practice of the People Called Quakers. Miller & Burlock. p. 3.
3. Richard Kozar; William J. Burling (2000). Summer Theatre in London, 1661-1820, and the Rise of the Haymarket Theatre. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 43. ISBN   978-0-8386-3811-8.
4. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 200–201. ISBN   0-7126-5616-2.
5. Mark A. Schneider (15 December 1993). Culture and Enchantment. University of Chicago Press. p. 1. ISBN   978-0-226-73927-4.
6. Thomas DOGGET (1696). The Country Wake: a comedy. In five acts and in prose.
7. George Watson; Ian R. Willison; J. D. Pickles (2 July 1971). The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: Volume 2, 1660-1800. Cambridge University Press. pp. 765–. ISBN   978-0-521-07934-1.
8. She Ventures, and He Wins. A comedy ... For Hen. Rhodes. 1696.
9. George Watson; Ian R. Willison; J. D. Pickles (2 July 1971). The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: Volume 2, 1660-1800. Cambridge University Press. pp. 797–. ISBN   978-0-521-07934-1.
10. John Dryden (29 September 1976). The Works of John Dryden, Volume XV: Plays: Albion and Albanius, Don Sebastian, Amphitryon. University of California Press. p. 330. ISBN   978-0-520-02129-7.
11. W.H.G. Armytage (15 October 2013). Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in England, 1560-1960. Routledge. p. 30. ISBN   978-1-134-52943-8.
12. Berman, David (1995). Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy . Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.  877. ISBN   0-19-866132-0.
13. Katharina M. Wilson; Paul Schlueter; June Schlueter (16 December 2013). Women Writers of Great Britain and Europe: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 122. ISBN   978-1-135-61670-0.
14. Holthöfer, Ernst (2001). "Domat, Jean". In Michael Stolleis (ed.). Juristen: ein biographisches Lexikon; von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (in German) (2nd ed.). München: Beck. p. 180. ISBN   3-406-45957-9.
15. Tilley, Arthur Augustus (2016). Madame de Sévigné: Some Aspects of Her Life and Character. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 154. ISBN   978-1-31662-004-5.
16. Jean de La Bruyère (1970). Characters. Penguin Books. p. 13. ISBN   978-0-14-044221-2.
17. Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. C. Knight. 1843. p. 144.
18. John A Newton ‘ Samuel Annesley 1620-1696)’ Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society v.XLV 1985-6 pp 29-45 p.37