1688 in literature

Events

• February – John Locke returns to England in the escort of Princess Mary, the same year that the first abstract of his seminal An Essay Concerning Human Understanding appears in Leclerc's Bibliotheque universelle, although the work itself is not published until the following year.
• December – John Dryden refuses to swear allegiance to the new monarchy after the Glorious Revolution and is dismissed as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. He is the only laureate not to die in office until the initiation of fixed-term appointments with Andrew Motion in 1999.
• unknown date – The fourth, first illustrated edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost is published by Jacob Tonson in London. The illustrators include John Baptist Medina.

  New books

Prose

• David Abercromby – Ars explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sapore
• Etienne Baluze – Marca hispanica
• Aphra Behn:
• *The History of the Nun, or the Fair Vow-Breaker
• *Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave
• *The Fair Jilt: or, the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda
• Biblia de la București
• Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle – Digression sur les anciens et les modernes
• Jean de La Bruyère – Les Caractères
• Ihara Saikaku
• *The Eternal Storehouse of Japan
• *Tales of Samurai Honor
• Henry More – Divine Dialogues
• George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax
• *The Anatomy of an Equivalent
• *The Lady's New-Years Gift: or, Advice to a Daughter

  Drama

• John Crowne – Darius, King of Persia
• William Mountfort – The Injur'd Lovers, or The Ambitious Father
• Thomas Shadwell – The Squire of Alsatia
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz – El divino Narciso

  Poetry

• See 1688 in poetry
• Romances varios

  Births

• January 29 – Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian.
• February – Hermanus Angelkot junior, Dutch pharmacist, poet and dramatist
• February 4 – Pierre de Marivaux, French playwright
• February 7 – John Morgan, Anglo-Welsh poet
• April 2 – Lewis Theobald, English Shakespearean editor
• May 21 – Alexander Pope, English poet
• September 6 – Laurence Eusden, English poet laureate
• November 13 – Noël-Antoine Pluche, French natural historian and priest
• November 15 – Charles Rivington, English publisher
• December 24 – Johann Bachstrom, Polish theologian and writer
• Unknown date – Richard Bradley, English scientific writer
• probable – William Meston, Scottish poet

  Deaths

• March 15 – Peter Walsh, Irish politician and historian
• May 14 – Antoine Furetière, French satirist
• May 22 – Johannes Andreas Quenstedt, German theologian
• June 26 – Ralph Cudworth, English philosopher
• August 31 – John Bunyan, English writer and preacher
• September 22 – François Bernier, French physician and travel writer
• October 14 – Joachim von Sandrart, German/Dutch art historian
• November 16 – Bengt Gottfried Forselius, Swedish Estonian educational pioneer
• November 26 – Philippe Quinault, French dramatist
• December 8 – Thomas Flatman, English poet and painter
• December 20 – Thomas Jevon, English playwright and harlequin