1653 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1653.
Events
- January 17 – John Evelyn begins to set out gardens at Sayes Court, Deptford, the house he has recently bought.
- March 26 – James Shirley's masque Cupid and Death is performed before the Portuguese ambassador in London.
- June – English actor Robert Cox is arrested at the Red Bull Theatre in London for performing a "droll" deemed to be a play.
- September 9 – London publisher Humphrey Moseley enters into the Stationers' Register the plays The History of Cardenio, attributed posthumously to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, and Henry I and Henry II, attributed to Shakespeare and Robert Davenport; none survive.
- Pastor Daniel Klein's Grammatica Litvanica, the first printed prescriptive grammar of the Lithuanian language, is published in Latin by Johann Reusner in Königsberg, Duchy of Prussia, introducing the distinctive Lithuanian letter Ė.
New books
Prose
- Ralph Austen – A Treatise on Fruit-trees, showing the manner of grafting, setting, pruning, and ordering of them in all respects
- Baltasar Gracián – El criticón
- Blaise Pascal – Traité du triangle arithmétique
- Jeremy Taylor – Twenty-five Sermons
- Sir Thomas Urquhart
- *First English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Books I and II
- *Logopandecteision
- Izaak Walton -The Compleat Angler
- Arthur Wilson – ''The History of Great Britain, being the Life and Reign of King James I''
Drama
- Richard Brome – Five New Plays, a collection of his dramas including A Mad Couple Well-Match'd, The Novella, The Court Beggar, The City Wit, and The Damoiselle
- John Ford – The Queen
- William Heminges – The Fatal Contract
- Henry Killigrew – Pallantus and Eudora
- Philippe Quinault – Les Rivales
- James Shirley – The Court Secret
- Lope de Vega – La discreta enamorada
- Agustín Moreto – El lindo don Diego
- Paul Scarron – ''Don Japhel d'Arménie''
Poetry
- Margaret Cavendish – ''Poems and Fancies''
Births
- January 13 – Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian
- March 8 – Goodwin Wharton, English autobiographer and politician
- Unknown date – Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japanese dramatist
- Probable year of birth – Nathaniel Lee, English dramatist
Deaths
- May 26 – Robert Filmer, English political theorist
- July 10 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar
- September 3 – Claudius Salmasius, French classical scholar
- September 23 – Jacques Goar, French Hellenist
- October 15 – Piaras Feiritéar, Irish-language poet and rebel
- December – John Taylor, English poet and waterman
- Unknown date
- *Zachary Boyd, Scottish poet
- *Lucrezia Marinella, Italian poet, writer and supporter of women's rights