1691 in literature

The year 1691 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• The first of eight volumes of Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy Who Lived Five and Forty Years Undiscover'd at Paris is published; subsequent volumes are issued through 1694. The project is a hoax: Volume 1 is actually the work of Italian writer Giovanni Paolo Marana, with Englishmen Roger Manley, Robert Midgeley, and William Bradshaw contributing to later volumes.

New books

• Gerard Langbaine - An Account of the English Dramatic Poets
• Sir Dudley North - Discourses upon Trade
• The Kingdom of Ireland

New drama

• Anonymous - The Braggadocio, or Bawd Turn'd Puritan
• John Bancroft - Edward III, with the Fall of Mortimer, Earl of March
• David-Augustin de Brueys & Jean Palaprat - Le Muet
• John Dryden - King Arthur, or the British Worthy (a "semi-opera" with music by Henry Purcell)
• Thomas d'Urfey - Love for Money
• Joseph Harris - The Mistakes
• William Mountfort - Greenwich Park
• Jean Racine - Athalie
• Thomas Southerne - The Wives' Excuse, or Cuckolds Make Themselves
• Cave Underhill - Win Her and Take Her
• John Wilson - Belphegor, or the Marriage of the Devil published

Births

• February 27 - Edward Cave, printer and publisher (died 1754)
• April 9 - Johann Matthias Gesner, classical commentator (died 1761)
• date unknown - John Leland, theologian (died 1766)

Deaths

• July 30 - Daniel Georg Morhof, German writer and critic (born 1639)
• October 10 - Isaac de Benserade, French poet (born 1613)
• December 8 - Richard Baxter, religious leader and writer (born 1615)
• date unknown - John Flavel, religious writer (born 1627)
• probable - Samuel Pordage, poet