1641 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1641.

Events

• March 12 – Abraham Cowley's play The Guardian is acted at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the presence of Prince Charles (later King Charles II).
• Spring – Pierre Corneille marries Marie de Lampérière.
• c. May – William Davenant is convicted of high treason for his part in the First Army Plot in England and flees to France.
• August 5 – Because of an increase in cases of bubonic plague, John Lowin delivers warrants to London theatres ordering them to close.
• c. December – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, becomes an advisor to King Charles I of England.

New books

Prose

• George Abbot – Vindiciae Sabbathi
• Moses Amyraut – De l'elevation de la foy et de l'abaissement de la raison en la creance des mysteres de la religion
• Richard Baker – Apologie for Laymen's Writing in Divinity, with a Short Meditation upon the Fall of Lucifer
• Sir Edward Coke – The Complete Copyholder
• Luís Vélez de Guevara – '
• René Descartes – Meditations on First Philosophy
• William Habington – Observations upon History
• Joseph Hall – Episcopacy by Divine Right
• Samuel Hartlib (nominal author, really by Gabriel Plattes) – A Description of the Famous Kingdom of Macaria
• Thomas Heywood – The Life of Merlin surnamed Ambrosius
• Thomas Hobbes – De Cive
• Sir Francis Kynaston – Leoline and Sydanis
• John Milton – Of Reformation
• Sir Robert Naunton (died 1635) – Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her Times and Favourites
• Mother Shipton (died 1561, attributed) – The prophesie of Mother Shipton in the raigne of King Henry the eighth
• Sir Henry Spelman – De Sepultura
• Heinrich Stahl – Leyen Spiegel
• John Taylor – John Taylors Last Voyage and Adventure
• Nicolaes Tulp – Observationes Medicae
• John Wilkins – Mercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger
• Francisco de Quevedo – Providencia de Dios
• Juan Eusebio Nieremberg – De la hermosura de Dios y su amabilidad, por las infinitas perfecciones del ser divino
• Luis Vélez de Guevara – El diablo Cojuelo