1581 in literature

Events

• January – Francis Bacon takes his seat as an MP in the Parliament of England for the Cornish pocket borough of Bossiney.
• June 24 – Torquato Tasso's epic poem Jerusalem Delivered is first published complete, a pirated edition printed in Parma being followed by an authorized edition from Ferrara, where the poet is confined in the Ospedale di Sant'Anna. Also this year, Aldus Manutius the Younger prints a selection of Tasso's lyrics and prose in Venice.

• Stationer Thomas Marsh publishes Seneca's Tragedies in English, a collected edition of ten dramas written by Seneca the Younger, translated by Jasper Heywood, John Studley, Alexander Neville, Thomas Newton, and Thomas Nuce. Most of the texts have been printed previously, from 1559 onward; but Newton's version of Thebais is new, and earlier printed texts of Studley's versions of Hercules Oetaeus and Hippolytus, if they ever existed, have not survived.
• John Dee starts to write Libri mysteriorum I-XVIII.
• First record of bookselling at No. 1, Trinity Street, Cambridge, England; it will continue to be a bookshop for at least 430 years.

  New books

• Church of Scotland – The Second Book of Discipline
• William Lambarde – Eirenarcha: or of the Office of the Justices of Peace
• Ostrog Bible
• Barnabe Riche – Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession verie pleasaunt discourses fit for a peaceable tyme

  New drama

• Edward Forsett – Pedantius
• George Peele – The Arraignment of Paris
• Nathaniel Woodes – The Conflict of Conscience

  Poetry

• Torquato Tasso – Jerusalem Delivered

  Births

• January 4 – James Ussher, Anglo-Irish archbishop and scholar
• March 16 – Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Dutch Golden Age writer
• June 18 – Thomas Overbury, English poet and essayist
• August 15 – Jeremias Drexel, German Jesuit writer
• November 11 – Henry Adamson, Scottish poet and historian

• Christoph Helvig, German historian and theologian
• Charles Malapert, Belgian Jesuit writer
• Hieronim Morsztyn, Polish poet

• Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, Mexican dramatist

  Deaths

• June 16 – Thomas Wilson, English rhetorician
• September 1 – Guru Ram Das, Sikh guru
• September 6 – Guillaume Postel, French linguist
• September 28 – Achilles Statius, Portuguese humanist writer
• September 29 Andreas Musculus, German theologian
• November 7 – Richard Davies, Welsh bishop and scholar

• Georgette de Montenay, French courtier and author of emblem book
• Morys Clynnog, Welsh author writing in Welsh
• Nicholas Sanders, English Catholic propagandist