title: 1678 in literature
text: # 1678 in literature
  
  This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1678.
  
  ## Events
  
  * February – English dramatist Thomas Otway, perhaps escaping from an unhappy love affair with his leading actress, obtains a commission in an English regiment serving in the Franco-Dutch War and is sent in July to Flanders.
  * February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, partly written while he was imprisoned for unlicensed preaching, is published in London.
  * March – The novel La Princesse de Clèves, presumed to be by Madame de La Fayette, is published in Paris. It is set in 1558–1559 and an early example of a psychological novel.
  * November – The English printer Joseph Moxon becomes the first tradesman to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
  
  ## New books
  
  ### Prose
  
  * Manuel Ambrosio de Filguera – Si sea lícito hacer los autos sacramentales en las iglesias
  * John Barret – The Christian Temper, or, A Discourse Concerning the Nature and Properties of the Graces of Sanctification
  * Jacob Boehme – Mysterium Magnum, oder Erkärung über das Erste Buch Mosis (Amsterdam & Frankfurt; contains a portrait of Boehme by N. van Werd)
  * John Bunyan – The Pilgrim's Progress
  * Ralph Cudworth – The True Intellectual System of the Universe
  * Madame de La Fayette (anonymously) – La Princesse de Clèves
  * Sir Thomas Herbert – Threnodia Carolina
  * Thomas Hobbes – Decameron Physiologicum
  * Josiah King – The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas Together with his Clearing by the Jury
  * The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-Shire (a woodcut showing what is alleged to be the first crop circle)
  * The Works of Geber, Englished by Richard Russell.
  * Thomas Rymer – The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered
  * Jacob Spon – Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant
  * Aernout van Overbeke – De rym-wercken
  
  ### Drama
  
  * Anonymous
     * Actio Curiosa
  * John Banks – The Destruction of Troy
  * Aphra Behn – Sir Patient Fancy
  * William Chamberlayne – Wits Led by the Nose, or a Poet's Revenge published
  * Thomas Corneille – Le Comte d'Essex
  * John Dryden
     * All for Love
     * The Kind Keeper
  * Thomas d'Urfey
     * Trick for Trick
     * Squire Oldsapp
  * Edward Howard – The Man of Newmarket
  * Nathaniel Lee – Mithridates, King of Pontus
  * John Leanerd
     * The Counterfeits
     * The Rambling Justice
  * Thomas Otway – Friendship in Fashion
  * Samuel Pordage – The Siege of Babylon
  * Edward Ravenscroft – The English Lawyer (adapted from George Ruggle's Latin play Ignoramus)
  * Thomas Rawlins – Tunbridge Wells
     * Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia (adapted from Shakespeare's play)
  * Thomas Shadwell
     * The History of Timon of Athens the Man-Hater
     * A True Widow
  * Nahum Tate – Brutus of Alba
  
  ### Poetry
  
  * Anne Bradstreet – Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (posthumously published)
  * Samuel Butler – Hudibras, Part 3
  * Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter – Själens aandelige Sangoffer ("The Souls Spiritual Offering of Song")
  
  ## Births
  
  * January 10 – Paul Gabriel Antoine, French theologian (died 1743)
  * July – Thomas Hearne, editor of medieval manuscripts (died 1735)
  * December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian (died 1743)
  * Unknown dates
     * Thomas Sherlock, English religious writer and bishop (died 1761)
     * William Wogan, Welsh religious writer in English (died 1758)
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * January 16 – Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé, French writer and salonnière (born 1599)
  * March 10 – Jean de Launoy, French historian (born 1603)
  * April 12 – Sir Thomas Stanley, English poet, writer and translator (born 1625)
  * May 4 – Abraham Woodhead, English Catholic writer (born 1609)
  * May 14 or 15 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar (born 1607)
  * August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician (born 1621)
  * August 17 – Guillaume Herincx, Netherlandish theologian (born 1621)
  * November 21 – Robert Thoroton, English antiquary (born 1623)
  * Unknown date – Theophilus Gale, English theologian (born 1628)
  * Probable date – Richard Flecknoe English dramatist and poet (born c. 1600)
  