1678 in literature

Events

• February – English dramatist Thomas Otway, perhaps escaping from an unhappy love affair with his leading actress, obtains a commission in an English regiment serving in the Franco-Dutch War and is sent in July to Flanders.
• February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, partly written while he was imprisoned for unlicensed preaching, is published in London.
• March – The novel La Princesse de Clèves, presumed to be by Madame de La Fayette, is published in Paris. It is set in 1558–1559 and an early example of a psychological novel.
• November – The English printer Joseph Moxon becomes the first tradesman to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

  New books

Prose

• Manuel Ambrosio de Filguera – Si sea lícito hacer los autos sacramentales en las iglesias
• John Barret – The Christian Temper, or, A Discourse Concerning the Nature and Properties of the Graces of Sanctification
• Jacob Boehme – Mysterium Magnum, oder Erkärung über das Erste Buch Mosis
• John Bunyan – The Pilgrim's Progress
• Ralph Cudworth – The True Intellectual System of the Universe
• Madame de La Fayette – La Princesse de Clèves
• Sir Thomas Herbert – Threnodia Carolina
• Thomas Hobbes – Decameron Physiologicum
• Josiah King – The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas Together with his Clearing by the Jury
• The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-Shire
• The Works of Geber, Englished by Richard Russell.
• Thomas Rymer – The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered
• Jacob Spon – Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant
• Aernout van Overbeke – De rym-wercken

  Drama

• Anonymous
• *Actio Curiosa
• John Banks – The Destruction of Troy
• Aphra Behn – Sir Patient Fancy
• William Chamberlain – Wits Led by the Nose, or a Poet's Revenge published
• Thomas Corneille – Le Comte d'Essex
• John Dryden
• *All for Love
• *The Kind Keeper
• Thomas d'Urfey
• *Trick for Trick
• *Squire Old-Sapp, or the Night Adventurers
• Edward Howard – The Man of Newmarket
• John Learned
• *The Counterfeits
• *The Rambling Justice
• Thomas Otway – Friendship in Fashion
• Samuel Pordage – The Siege of Babylon
• Edward Ravenscroft – The English Lawyer
• *Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia
• Thomas Shadwell
• *The History of Timon of Athens the Man-Hater
• *A True Widow
• Nahum Tate – Brutus of Alba

  Poetry

• Anne Bradstreet – Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning
• Samuel Butler – Hudibras, Part 3
• Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter – Själens aandelige Sangoffer

  Births

• January 10 – Paul Gabriel Antoine, French theologian
• July – Thomas Hearne, editor of medieval manuscripts
• December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian
• Unknown dates
• *Thomas Sherlock, English religious writer and bishop
• *William Wogan, Welsh religious writer in English

  Deaths

• January 16 – Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé, French writer and salonnière
• March 10 – Jean de Launoy, French historian
• April 12 – Sir Thomas Stanley, English poet, writer and translator
• May 4 – Abraham Woodhead, English Catholic writer
• May 14 or 15 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar
• August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician
• August 17 – Guillaume Herincx, Netherlandish theologian
• November 21 – Robert Thoroton, English antiquary
• Unknown date – Theophilus Gale, English theologian
• Probable date – Richard Flecknoe English dramatist and poet