1679 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1679.

Events

April 30 – John Locke, returning to England from France, moves into Thanet House in London.
June – Nathaniel Lee's play The Massacre at Paris is suppressed by King Charles II of England as anti-French, the French being English allies at this time.
August – Thomas Otway returns to England from military service in the Netherlands.
October – Thomas Otway's The History and Fall of Caius Marius, his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, is first performed. It will drive Shakespeare's original off the stage for more than sixty years.
December 18 – Rose Alley ambuscade: John Dryden is set upon by three assailants in London, thought to have been instigated by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester in retaliation for an attack on "want of wit" in his poetry in The Essay on Satire.
unknown dates
*Étienne Baluze becomes almoner to King Louis XIV of France.
*Pu Songling probably compiles most of his Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.

January 24 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher
August 16 – Catherine Trotter Cockburn, English novelist, dramatist and philosopher
September 11 – Thomas Parnell, Irish poet and cleric
September 24 – Eugenio Gerardo Lobo, Spanish poet and soldier
September 26 – Johann Gottlob Carpzov, German Biblical scholar
October 26 – Heinrich Jacob Bashuysen, German printer
Unknown dates
*Charles Johnson, English dramatist and poet
*George Psalmanazar, French-born imposter and English writer
*Robert Wodrow, Scottish historian
Probable year of birth – Penelope Aubin, English novelist and translator