This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1649.
January 1 – Local authorities raid the four remaining London theatres (the Salisbury Court, Red Bull, Cockpit, and Fortune) to suppress clandestine play-acting. The actors found are arrested – except for the Red Bull company, who manage to escape.
February 9 – Eikon Basilike: the Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, purporting to be the spiritual autobiography of King Charles I of England, is published ten days after his execution, and becomes an enormous popular success. John Gauden later claims to have written it.
March 24 (Saturday) – The authorities damage the Cockpit Theatre to inhibit continued attempts to use it for plays. (The building is not destroyed, however, and in 1660, when drama resumes in England with the Restoration, the theatre is fixed and used again.)
April 23 – William Everard a Digger issues "The Declaration and Standard of the Levellers of England."
October – John Milton's Eikonoklastes: in Answer to a Book Intitl'd Eikon Basilike, a defence of the execution of Charles I, is published.
With the London theatres remaining closed since 1642, the trend toward closet drama (often highly politicized) continues – and is accentuated by the January 30 execution of Charles I. In the play Newmarket Fair, Oliver Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders commit suicide when they learn of the accession of Charles II (an event that, in actuality, still lies eleven years in the future).
Antoine Girard's poem Rome Ridicule starts a fashion for burlesque poetry.
Sir William Davenant is appointed treasurer of the colony of Virginia.
George Bates – Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum in Anglia, or, A short historical account of the rise and progress of the late troubles in England. First part published and read by Pepys (13 February 1662/63)
Nicholas Culpepper – A Physicall Directory, or, A Translation of the London Dispensatory
René Descartes – Les passions de l'âme (Passions of the Soul)
John Donne – Fifty Sermons
John Gauden (?) – Eikon Basilike: The Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings
John Lilburne
England's New Chains Discovered
Legal Fundamental Liberties
John Milton
Eikonoklastes (a reply to Eikon Basilike)
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
Francisco Pacheco – Arte de la pintura (The Art of Painting)
Alexander Ross – The Alcoran of Mahomet. First English translation, done from the 1647 French version of Andre du Ryer
"Salmasius" (Claude de Saumaise) – Defensio Regia
Jeremy Taylor – Apology for authorized and set forms of Liturgy against the Pretence of the Spirit
Anonymous
A Bartholomew Fairing
The Disease of the House, or the State Mountebank Administering Physic to a Sick Parliament
The Famous Tragedy of Charles II, Basely Butchered
Newmarket Fair, or A Parliament Outcry
Anonymous ("T. B.") – The Rebellion of Naples, or the Tragedy of Massenello
William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle
The Country Captain
The Variety
Sir William Davenant – Love and Honour
Francis Quarles – The Virgin Widow
William Peaps – Love in Its Ecstasy, or the Large Prerogative
Christopher Wase – The Electra of Sophocles
Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant – Rome Ridicule
Richard Lovelace – Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c., to which is added Aramantha, A Pastoral
Francisco de Trillo y Figueroa – Al himeneo del señor D. Francisco de Vergara
Lachrymae Musarum: The Tears of the Muses
Monumentum Regale, a Tombe for Charles I
March 3 – Sir John Floyer, English medical writer and physician (died 1734)
June 13 – Adrien Baillet, French critic and biographer (died 1706
September 27 – Jonas Danilssønn Ramus, Norwegian historian (died 1718)
Unknown date – Samuel Johnson, English political writer (died 1703)
March 19 – Gerhard Johann Vossius, Dutch classicist and theologian (born 1577)
June 3 – Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Portuguese historian and poet (born 1590)
June 20 – Maria Tesselschade Visscher, Dutch poet (born 1594)
August 25 – Richard Crashaw, English poet (born c. 1613)
October 3 – Giovanni Diodati, Swiss-born Italian theologian (born 1576)
November 19 – Caspar Schoppe, German critic (born 1576)
December 4 – William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet (born 1585)
Unknown date – Alexander Leighton, Scottish pamphleteer and physician (born c. 1570)
1649 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA