This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1678.
February – English dramatist Thomas Otway, perhaps escaping from an unhappy love affair with his leading actress, obtains a commission in an English regiment serving in the Franco-Dutch War, and is sent in July to Flanders.
February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (partly written while he was imprisoned for unlicensed preaching) is published in London.
March – Publication in Paris of the novel La Princesse de Clèves, presumed to be by Madame de La Fayette, set in 1558–59 and an early example of a psychological novel.
November – English printer Joseph Moxon becomes the first tradesman to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Manuel Ambrosio de Filguera – Si sea lícito hacer los autos sacramentales en las iglesias
John Barret – The Christian Temper, or, A Discourse Concerning the Nature and Properties of the Graces of Sanctification
Jacob Boehme – Mysterium Magnum, oder Erkärung über das Erste Buch Mosis (Amsterdam & Frankfurt; contains a portrait of Boehme by N. van Werd)
John Bunyan – The Pilgrim's Progress
Ralph Cudworth – The True Intellectual System of the Universe
Madame de La Fayette (anonymously) – La Princesse de Clèves
Sir Thomas Herbert – Threnodia Carolina
Thomas Hobbes – Decameron Physiologicum
Josiah King – The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas Together with his Clearing by the Jury
The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-Shire (a woodcut showing what is alleged to be the first crop circle)
The Works of Geber, Englished by Richard Russell.
Thomas Rymer – The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered
John Banks – The Destruction of Troy
Aphra Behn – Sir Patient Fancy
William Chamberlain – Wits Led by the Nose, or a Poet's Revenge published
John Dryden
All for Love
The Kind Keeper
Thomas d'Urfey
Trick for Trick
Squire Old-Sapp, or the Night Adventurers
Edward Howard – The Man of Newmarket
John Learned
The Counterfeits
The Rambling Justice
Thomas Otway – Friendship in Fashion
Samuel Pordage – The Siege of Babylon
Edward Ravenscroft – The English Lawyer (adapted from George Ruggle's Latin play Ignoramus)
Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia (adapted from Shakespeare's play)
Thomas Shadwell
The History of Timon of Athens the Man-Hater
A True Widow
Nahum Tate – Brutus of Alba
Anne Bradstreet – Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (posthumously published)
Samuel Butler – Hudibras, Part 3
Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter – Själens aandelige Sangoffer ("The Souls Spiritual Offering of Song")
January 10 – Paul Gabriel Antoine, French theologian (died 1743)
July – Thomas Hearne, editor of medieval manuscripts (died 1735)
December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian (died 1743)
Unknown dates
Thomas Sherlock, English religious writer and bishop (died 1761)
William Wogan, Welsh religious writer in English (died 1758)
Probable year of birth – George Farquhar, dramatist (died 1707)
January 16 – Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé, French writer and salonnière (born 1599)
April 12 – Sir Thomas Stanley, English poet, writer and translator (born 1625)
May 4 – Abraham Woodhead, English Catholic writer (born 1609)
May 14 or 15 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar (born 1607)
August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician (born 1621)
August 17 – Guillaume Herincx, Netherlandish theologian (born 1621)
November 21 – Robert Thoroton, English antiquary (born 1623)
Unknown dates
Theophilus Gale, English theologian (born 1628)
Jean de Launoy, French historian (born 1603)
Probable year of birth – Richard Flecknoe English dramatist and poet (born c. 1600)
The action of Walter Scott's novel Peveril of the Peak (1823) centres on the Popish Plot beginning in this year.
1678 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA