1581 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1581.

Events

January – Francis Bacon takes his seat as an MP in the Parliament of England for the Cornish pocket borough of Bossiney.
June 24 – Torquato Tasso's epic poem Jerusalem Delivered is first published complete, a pirated edition printed in Parma being followed by an authorized edition from Ferrara, where the poet is confined in the Ospedale di Sant'Anna. Also this year, Aldus Manutius the Younger prints a selection of Tasso's lyrics and prose in Venice.

Uncertain dates

Stationer Thomas Marsh publishes Seneca's Tragedies in English, a collected edition of ten dramas written by Seneca the Younger, translated by Jasper Heywood, John Studley, Alexander Neville, Thomas Newton, and Thomas Nuce. Most of the texts have been printed previously, from 1559 onward; but Newton's version of Thebais is new, and earlier printed texts of Studley's versions of Hercules Oetaeus and Hippolytus, if they ever existed, have not survived.
John Dee starts to write Libri mysteriorum I-XVIII.
First record of bookselling at No. 1, Trinity Street, Cambridge, England; it will continue to be a bookshop for at least 430 years.

Church of Scotland – The Second Book of Discipline
William Lambarde – Eirenarcha: or of the Office of the Justices of Peace
Ostrog Bible
Barnabe Riche – Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession '''' ''verie pleasaunt discourses fit for a peaceable tyme''

Uncertain dates

Probable year

Uncertain dates