1621 in literature
# 1621 in literature

Events from the year 1621 in literature.

## 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

* 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)
