1620 in literature

The year 1620 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• The Book of Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre with Annotations by Henry Ainsworth is the only book brought to New England by the pilgrim settlers.
• Thomas Middleton is appointed chronologer of the City of London.
• Appearance of the second version of The Ballad of Chevy Chase.

New books

• Francis Bacon - Novum Organum
• John Bainbridge's translation of Ptolemy's De Planetarum Hypothesibus
• Standard Welsh Bible, translated by Bishop William Morgan, Richard Parry and John Davies (Mallwyd).
• Salomon de Caus - Hortus Palatinus
• Thomas Rowlands - The Night Raven

New drama

• Anonymous (Thomas Heywood?) - Swetnam the Woman-Hater published
• Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Philaster published
• Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger - The Virgin Martyr
• Ben Jonson
  • News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (masque)
  • Pan's Anniversary (masque)
• Thomas Middleton & William Rowley - The World Tossed at Tennis (masque)

Poetry

Births

• July 20 - Nikolaes Heinsius the Elder, poet and scholar (died 1681)
• October 31 - John Evelyn, diarist (died 1706)
• November 10 - Ninon de l'Enclos, author and patron of the arts (died 1705)
• date unknown
  • Alexander Brome, poet (died 1666)
  • Lucy Hutchinson, biographer (died 1681)
  • Marchamont Needham, journalist and pamphleteer (died 1678)
• probable - Melchisédech Thévenot, polymath (died 1692)

Deaths

• February 1 - Mario di Calasio, author of a Hebrew concordance (born 1550)
• February 19 - Roemer Visscher, Dutch writer (born 1547)
• March 1 - Thomas Campion, poet and composer (born 1567)
• date unknown
  • Richard Carew, author and translator (born 1555)
  • Nathan Field, dramatist (born 1587)
  • Prudencio de Sandoval, Spanish Benedictine historian (born 1553)