1539 in literature

Events

• April – Printing of the Great Bible is completed; it is distributed to churches in England. Prepared by Myles Coverdale, it contains much material from the Tyndale Bible – unacknowledged as the Tyndale version is officially deemed heretical.
• Unknown dates
• *Game Place House in Great Yarmouth becomes the first place in England to be used regularly as a public theatre.
• *Marie Dentière writes an open letter to Marguerite of Navarre, sister of King Francis I of France. This Epistre tres utile calls for an expulsion of Catholic clergy from France.
• *The first printing press in North America is set up in Mexico City. The first known book from it, Manual de Adultos, appears in 1540.
• *Teseo Ambrogio's Introductio in Chaldaicam lingua, Syriaca atq Armenica, & dece alias linguas, published in Pavia, introduces several Middle Eastern languages to Western Europe for the first time.

  New books

Prose

• Robert Estienne – Alphabetum Hebraicum
• Martin Luther – On the Councils and the Church

  Poetry

Births

• February 27 – Franciscus Raphelengius, Flemish-born Dutch scholar, printer and bookseller
• March 5 – Christoph Pezel, German theologian
• April 12 – Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish Peruvian mestizo chronicler
• December 5 – Fausto Paolo Sozzini, Italian theologian
• December 20 – Paulus Melissus, German writer in Latin, translator and composer
• Unknown dates
• *Olivier de Serres, French writer on agriculture and horticulture
• *Jean de Tournes, French author, printer and bookseller
• *Richard White of Basingstoke, English jurist and historian

  Deaths

• March 5 – Kaspar Ursinus Velius, German scholar, poet and historian
• May 7 – Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer
• July 5 – Anthony Maria Zaccaria, Italian religious writer, leader of the Counter-reformation and saint
• July 12 – Ferdinand Columbus, Spanish bibliographer and cosmographer
• August 10 – Lanspergius, German Carthusian monk and ascetic writer
• November 25 – Johann Alexander Brassicanus, German author and teacher
• Unknown date – Gabriel Alonso de Herrera, Spanish author of an agricultural treatise