This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1659.

Events

• January 27 – The poet Andrew Marvell is elected a member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull in England's Third Protectorate Parliament.
• August – William Davenant is briefly imprisoned for his part in George Booth's Cheshire uprising in favor of restoring the English Monarchy.
• unknown dates
  • Méric Casaubon edits John Dee's journal of angel magic.
  • The Icelandic pastor Jón Magnússon completes his Píslarsaga (Passion Saga, or Story of My Sufferings).

New books

Prose

• Richard Baxter – The Holy Commonwealth
• Méric Casaubon (ed.) – A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes) and some spirits
• Thomas Hobbes – De Homine
• Christiaan Huygens – Systema Saturnium
• Ninon de l'Enclos – La Coquette vengée (The Flirt Avenged)
• Richard Lovelace – Lucasta (posthumous)
• William Prynne – Parliamentary Writs (further parts in 1660, 1662 and 1664)
• Johann Heinrich Rahn – Teutsche Algebra
• Péter Révay – De monarchia et sacra corona regni hungariae centuriae septem
• John Rushworth – Historical Collections of Private Passages of State... (also The Rushworth Papers)
• Anna Maria van Schurman – The Learned Maid, or Whether a Maid May Be a Scholar? (English version of 1638 Latin original)
• Jeremy Taylor – Discourse on the Nature, Offices and Measures of Friendship

Drama

• Anonymous – The London Chanticleers^[1]
• Richard Brome – Five New Plays, including The English Moor, The Lovesick Court, The Weeding of Covent Garden, The New Academy, and The Queen and Concubine
• Joan Leonardsz Blasius – De Edelmoedige Vijanden
• Sir William Davenant – The History of Sir Francis Drake
• John Day and Henry Chettle – The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (published six decades after its premiere)
• Juan Bautista Diamante – El honrador de su padre
• Richard Flecknoe – The Marriage of Oceanus and Britannia
• Molière – Les Précieuses ridicules
• Walter Montague – The Shepherd's Paradise^[2]
• Agustín Moreto – No puede ser...
• James Shirley
  • The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses
  • Honoria and Mammon
• Joost van den Vondel – Jephta

Poetry

• William Chamberlayne – Pharonnida: A heroick poem
• Luis de Ulloa Pereira – Versos

Births

• January 1 – Humphrey Hody, English theologian and archdeacon (died 1707)
• March – Margrethe Lasson, Danish novelist (died 1738)
• March 25 – John Asgill, English pamphleteer (died 1738)
• March 26 – William Wollaston, English philosopher, classicist and cleric (died 1724)
• April 29 – Sophia Elisabet Brenner, Swedish poet and writer (died 1730)^[3]
• unknown dates
  • Thomas Creech, English classicist and translator (died 1700)
  • Kata Szidónia Petrőczy, Hungarian poet (died 1708)

Deaths

• January 7 – Laurenz Forer, Swiss theologian and controversialist writing in Latin and German (born 1580)
• January 31 – János Apáczai Csere, Hungarian linguist, mathematician and encyclopedist (born 1625)
• February 4 – Francis Osborne, English essayist (born 1593)
• April 15 – Simon Dach, German poet and hymnist (born 1605)
• June 3 – Morgan Llwyd, Welsh preacher, poet and writer (born 1619)^[4]
• September 22 – Thomas Morton, English polemicist and bishop (born 1564)
• October 27 – Giovanni Francesco Busenello, Italian poet and librettist (born 1598)