1553 in literature

Events

• Early – William Baldwin writes Beware the Cat, an early example of extended fiction in English and including an account of a printing house with which the author is familiar.
• unknown dates
• *The xiii Bukes of Eneados of the famose Poete Virgill appears in London as the first published complete translation of any major work of classical antiquity into one of the English languages, based posthumously on Gavin Douglas's Eneados, a translation of Virgil's Aeneid from Latin into Middle Scots completed in 1513.
• *Construction of the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice is completed to the design of Jacopo Sansovino.

  New books

Prose

• Francesco Patrizi – La Città felice

  Drama

• António Ferreira – Bristo
• Approximate year
• *Nicholas Udall – 'Respublica
• *Mr. S. – Gammer Gurton's Needle''

  Poetry

• See 1553 in poetry

  Births

• March 29 – Vitsentzos Kornaros, Cretan poet
• October 8 – Jacques Auguste de Thou, French historian
• c. December – John Chamberlain, English correspondent
• Unknown dates
• *John Florio, English lexicographer
• *Richard Hakluyt, English travel writer
• *George Wyatt, English biographer of Anne Boleyn

  Deaths

• March 17 – Girolamo Fracastoro, Italian scholar and poet
• April 9 – François Rabelais, French writer and satirist
• May 28 – Johannes Aal, Swiss theologian and dramatist
• October 27 – Michael Servetus, Spanish theologian and humanist
• December 14 – Hanibal Lucić, Croatian poet and playwright
• unknown date – Yamazaki Sōkan, Japanese poet