1621 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1621.

Events

• January 27 – Sir Francis Bacon is created Viscount St Alban.
• February 3 – John Chamberlain writes to Sir Dudley Carleton telling him the anonymous author of the tract Vox Populi has been revealed to be the radical preacher Thomas Scott.
• May 3 – Sir Francis Bacon is imprisoned in the Tower of London after being convicted of receiving bribes, but pardoned by King James I later in the year.
• August 26 – Barten Holyday's allegorical play Technogamia, originally produced at Christ Church, Oxford in 1618, is staged before James I at Woodstock Palace. He dislikes it, but is persuaded to stay to the end for the student actors' sakes.
• September 24 – The earliest known copy of the Corante, generally regarded as the first English newspaper, is published.
• November 22 – The English poet John Donne is installed as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London.
• December 30 – The Spanish writer Francisco de Borja y Aragón is replaced as Viceroy of Peru by Juan Jiménez de Montalvo, and embarks for home on the following day.

Uncertain date

• Jeremias Drexel gives up preaching in order to write a biography of Elisabeth of Lorraine.

New books

Prose

• William Alabaster – De bestia Apocalypsis
• Robert Burton – The Anatomy of Melancholy
• Méric Casaubon – Pietas contra maledicos patrii Nominis et Religionis Hostes
• Mao Yuanyi (茅元儀, editor) – Wubei Zhi (武備志, Treatise on Armaments)
• John Reynolds – The triumphs of Gods revenge, against the crying, and execrable sinne of murther
• Rachel Speght – Mortalities Memorandum
• John Taylor – Taylor's Motto
• John Widdowes – A Description of the World
• Lady Mary Wroth – The Countess of Montgomery's Urania

Drama

• Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, & Philip Massinger – Thierry and Theodoret (published)
• Thomas Dekker, John Ford, & William Rowley – The Witch of Edmonton
• Ben Jonson – The Gypsies Metamorphosed
• Tirso de Molina – El vergonzoso en palacio

Poetry

Main article: 1621 in poetry

• George Wither – Wither's Motto

Births

• January 27 – Thomas Willis, English physician and natural philosopher (died 1675)
• March 18 – Henry Teonge, English diarist and naval chaplain (died 1690)
• March 31 – Andrew Marvell, English poet (died 1678)
• April 25 – Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, Anglo-Irish dramatist (died 1679)
• July 8 – Jean de La Fontaine, French author of fables (died 1695)
• December 3 – Bohuslav Balbín, Czech Jesuit writer (died 1688)
• December 14 (baptised) – Thomas Long, English writer and cleric (died 1707)
• unknown date – Jane Cavendish, English poet and playwright (died 1669)
• probable – Françoise Bertaut de Motteville, French memoirist (died 1689)
• Possible year (1621 or 1622) – Richard Allestree, English scholar and cleric (died 1681)

Deaths

• January 25 – François Pithou, French author and jurist (born 1543)
• March 4 – Ana de Jesús, Spanish nun and writer (born 1545)
• May 11 – Johann Arndt, German theologian (born 1555)
• June – William Strachey, English eye-witness historian (born 1572)
• August 3 – Guillaume du Vair, French writer (born 1556)
• August 15 – John Barclay, Scottish writer (born 1582)
• September 25 – Mary Sidney, English playwright and translator (born 1561)
• October 7 or 8 – Antoine de Montchrestien, French adventurer and dramatist (born c. 1575)
• December 4 – Andrew Willet, English polemicist and cleric (born 1562)
• unknown date – Ludwig Hollonius, German dramatist (born c. 1570)