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.
March 5 – William Penn marries his second wife, Hannah Callowhill.
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.
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.
unknown date
*The Tuscan poet Vincenzo da Filicaja becomes governor of Volterra.
*Chapbook peddlers in England are required to hold a licence.

July 14 – William Oldys, English antiquary, bibliographer and poet
September 25 – Madame du Deffand, French literary hostess
October 13 – John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey, English memoirist and courtier
Unknown date – Matthew Green, English writer of light verse and customs official

January 3 – Mary Mollineux, English Quaker poet
March 14 – Jean Domat, French jurist
March 18 – Bonaventura Baron, Irish theologian, philosopher and writer in Latin
April 17 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, French author
April 27 – Simon Foucher, French polemic philosopher
May 10 – Jean de La Bruyère, French essayist
June 9 – Antoine Varillas, French historian
August 9 – Wacław Potocki, Polish nobleman, moralist, Baroque poet and writer
September 8 – Henry Birkhead, English academic, lawyer, Latin poet and founder of the Oxford Chair of Poetry
November 26 – Gregório de Matos, Brazilian Baroque poet
December 31 – Samuel Annesley, English Puritan minister noted for his sermons
Unknown dates
*Jón Magnússon, Icelandic writer
*Gesshū Sōko, Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher, poet and calligrapher