1689 in literature

Events

• April 30 – Thomas Shadwell becomes Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal in England.
• April/May – Jonathan Swift becomes secretary to Sir William Temple.
• May 26 – Matsuo Bashō begins the journey described in Oku no Hosomichi .

New books

Prose

• Richard Cox – Hibernia Anglicana
• George Hickes – Institutiones Grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae
• John Locke
• *Two Treatises of Government
• *A Letter Concerning Toleration
• *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• John Selden – Table Talk
• Johann Weikhard von Valvasor – ''The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola ''

Drama

• Aphra Behn – The Widow Ranter
• James Carlile – The Fortune Hunters
• Sor Juana – Amor es más labertino
• Nathaniel Lee – The Massacre of Paris
• William Mountfort – The Successful Strangers
• Thomas Shadwell – Bury Fair
• Nahum Tate – Dido and Aeneas
• Matthew Taubman – ''London's Great Jubilee''

Births

• January 18 – Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, French satirist
• January 21 – Daniel Henchman, Colonial American bookseller and publisher
• May 26 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English poet and letter-writer
• July 9 – Alexis Piron, French epigrammatist
• August 19 – Samuel Richardson, English novelist

Deaths

• January – William Chamberlayne, English poet and playwright
• February 21 – Isaac Vossius, Dutch-born collector of manuscripts
• April 16 – Aphra Behn, English dramatist, poet and novelist
• August 21 – William Cleland, Scottish soldier and poet
• November 13 – Philipp von Zesen, German poet and hymn-writer
• December 13 – Zbigniew Morsztyn, Polish poet
• Unknown date – Pjetër Bogdani, Albanian-language author