1653 in literature

Events

• January 17 – John Evelyn begins to set out gardens at Sayes Court, Deptford, the house he has recently bought.
• March 26 – James Shirley's masque Cupid and Death is performed before the Portuguese ambassador in London.
• June – English actor Robert Cox is arrested at the Red Bull Theatre in London for performing a "droll" deemed to be a play.
• September 9 – London publisher Humphrey Moseley enters into the Stationers' Register the plays The History of Cardenio, attributed posthumously to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, and Henry I and Henry II, attributed to Shakespeare and Robert Davenport; none survive.

  New books

Prose

• Ralph Austen – A Treatise on Fruit-trees, showing the manner of grafting, setting, pruning, and ordering of them in all respects
• Baltasar Gracián – El criticón
• Blaise Pascal – Traité du triangle arithmétique
• Jeremy Taylor – Twenty-five Sermons
• Sir Thomas Urquhart
• *First English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Books I and II
• *Logopandecteision
• Izaak Walton -The Compleat Angler
• Arthur Wilson – The History of Great Britain, being the Life and Reign of King James I

  Drama

• Richard Brome – Five New Plays, a collection of his dramas including A Mad Couple Well-Match'd, The Novella, The Court Beggar, The City Wit, and The Damoiselle
• John Ford – The Queen
• William Heminges – The Fatal Contract published
• Henry Killigrew – Pallantus and Eudora published
• Philippe Quinault – Les Rivales
• James Shirley – The Court Secret
• Lope de Vega – La discreta enamorada
• Agustín Moreto – El lindo don Diego
• Paul Scarron – Don Japhel d'Arménie

  Poetry

• Margaret Cavendish – Poems and Fancies

  Births

• January 13 – Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian
• March 8 – Goodwin Wharton, English autobiographer and politician
• Unknown date – Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japanese dramatist
• Probable year of birth – Nathaniel Lee, English dramatist

  Deaths

• May 26 – Robert Filmer, English political theorist
• July 10 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar
• September 3 – Claudius Salmasius, French classical scholar
• September 23 – Jacques Goar, French Hellenist
• October 15 – Piaras Feiritéar, Irish-language poet and rebel
• December – John Taylor, English poet and waterman
• Unknown date
• *Zachary Boyd, Scottish poet
• *Lucrezia Marinella, Italian poet, writer and supporter of women's rights