1683 in literature

The year 1683 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• John Locke flees to the Netherlands, under suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot.
• The Protestant Academy of Saumur is repressed by King Louis XIV of France.
• Lancelot Addison becomes Dean of Lichfield.
• Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de la Fayette, is widowed.
• Marriage of André Dacier and Anne Lefèvre.

New books

• John Dryden - Plutarch (one of the first biographies in the English language)
• Dr Thomas Sydenham - Tractatus de podagra et hydrope

New drama

• Joshua Barnes - Landgartha, or the Amazon Queen of Denmark and Norway
• John Crowne - City Politiques
• John Dryden & Nathaniel Lee - The Duke of Guise
• Sor Juana - Los empeños de una casa (The Trials of a Noble House)
• Thomas Otway - The Atheist
• Edward Ravenscroft - Dame Dobson, or the Cunning Woman

Poetry

• Robert Gould - Love Given O'er: Or a Satyr on the Inconstancy of Woman

Births

• April 3 - Mark Catesby, naturalist and writer (died 1749)
• December 27 - Conyers Middleton, theologian (died 1750)

Deaths

• January 15 - Philip Warwick, politician and writer (born 1609)
• August 24 - John Owen, theologian (born 1616)
• October 20 - Marie-Catherine de Villedieu, novelist and dramatist (born 1640)
• November 18 - Innokentiy Gizel, Ukrainian historian (born c. 1600)
• December 15 - Izaak Walton, the Compleat Angler (born 1593)