This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1686.

Events

• January – John Dryden is recorded as having converted to Roman Catholicism.^[1]

New books

Prose

• Pierre Bayle – Philosophical Commentary (on religious freedom)
• Bernard de Fontenelle
  • Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds)
  • L'Histoire des oracles
• Gottfried Leibniz
  • Brevis Demonstratio Erroris Memorabilis Cartesii et Aliorum Circa Legem Naturae (A Brief Demonstration of the Memorable Error of Descartes and Others About the Law of Nature)^[2]
  • Discours de Métaphysique
• Ihara Saikaku (井原 西鶴)
  • Twenty Cases of Unfilial Children (本朝二十不孝 Honchō Nijū Fukō)
  • The Life of an Amorous Woman (好色一代女 Kōshoku Ichidai Onna)
• Thomas Sydenham – Schedula monitoria de novae febris ingressu (Schedule of Symptoms of Newly Arrived Fever)

Children

• John Bunyan – A Book for Boys and Girls, or, Country Rhymes for Children

Drama

• Aphra Behn and John Blow – The Lucky Chance
• Thomas d'Urfey – The Banditti
• Thomas Jevon – The Devil of a Wife

Poetry

• Anne Killigrew (posthumously) – Poems

Births

• January 17 – Archibald Bower, Scottish historian (died 1766)
• August 12 – John Balguy, English philosopher (died 1748)
• September 5 – Antoine Touron, French historian and biographer (died 1775)
• unknown date – Alban Thomas, Welsh physician and antiquarian (died 1771)^[3]

Deaths

• January 31 – Jean Mairet, French dramatist (born 1604)^[4]
• February 6 – Dorothy White, English Quaker pamphleteer (born c. 1630)^[5]
• February 10 – William Dugdale, English antiquary and herald (born 1605)
• February 25 – Abraham Calovius, German Lutheran theologian (born 1612)
• June 23 – Sir William Coventry, English statesman and author (born c. 1628)
• July 10 – John Fell, English academic and bishop (born 1625)
• August 13 – Louis Maimbourg, French Jesuit historian (born 1610)
• November 25 – Nicolas Steno (Niels Steenson), Danish scientist (born 1638)
• November 28 – Nicolas Letourneux, French religious writer (born 1640)
• December 6 – Nicola Avancini, Italian Jesuit writer (born 1612)