1699 in literature

Events

• January 27 – Jonathan Swift is out of work after his employer, Sir William Temple, dies, leaving Swift £100.
• May 4 – The beginning of the fictional Gulliver's Travels.
• June 1 – Joseph Addison receives a grant or pension from the Crown, enabling him to travel abroad.

  New books

Prose

• Richard Bentley – A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris
• Samuel Clarke
• *Some Reflections on that part of a book called Amyntor, or a Defence of Milton's Life, which relates to the Writings of the Primitive Fathers, and the Canon of the New Testament
• *Three Practical Essays on Baptism, Confirmation and Repentance
• Jeremy Collier – A Defence of the Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage
• Anne Dacier – Homer's Iliad
• William Dampier – Voyages and Descriptions
• John Dunton – The Dublin Scuffle
• George Farquhar – The Adventures of Covent-Garden
• François Fénelon – Les Aventures de Télémaque
• Samuel Garth – The Dispensary
• John Hughes – The Court of Neptune
• George Keith – The Deism of William Penn, and his Brethren
• William King
• *Dialogues of the Dead
• *The Furmetary
• *A Journey to London
• Gerard Langbaine – The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets
• Roger L'Estrange – Fables and Storyes Moralized
• John Locke – Mr Locke's Reply to the Right Revered the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter
• Cornelius Nary – The Chief Points in Controversy between the Catholics and the Protestants
• Frances Norton – Reliquae Gethinianae
• John Oldmixon – Reflections on the Stage, and Mr Collier's Defence of the Short View
• Nicolas Steno – De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus
• William Temple – Letters Written by Sir William Temple During his Being Ambassador at The Hague
• John Toland
• *The Life of John Milton
• *Amyntor; or, A Defence of Milton's Life
• Thomas Traherne – A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God
• William Wake – The Principles of the Christian Religion Explained
• Ned Ward – A Trip to New-England
• James Wright – Historia Histrionica

  Poetry

• Thomas Brown – A Collection of Miscellany Poems, Letters, etc.
• Thomas D'Urfey – A Choice Collection of New Songs and Ballads
• John Pomfret – The Choice
• Nahum Tate – Elegies

  Drama

• Abel Boyer – Achilles, or Iphegenia in Aulis
• Colley Cibber – Xerxes
• John Dennis – Rinaldo and Armida
• George Farquhar – The Constant Couple
• Charles Gildon – Measure for Measure, or Beauty the Best Advocate
• Joseph Harris – Love's a Lottery, and a Woman the Prize
• Peter Anthony Motteux – The Island Princess; or, The Generous Portuguese
• Mary Pix – The False Friend

  Births

• April 17 – Robert Blair, Scottish poet
• April 28 – Joseph Spence, English literary historian
• June 26 – Madame Geoffrin, French salonnière
• August 13 – John Dyer, Welsh poet
• December 29 – Friedrich Ludwig Abresch, German-born Dutch philologist

  Deaths

• January 21 – Obadiah Walker, English religious writer and controversialist
• January 27 – Sir William Temple, English statesman and essayist
• March 24 – John Evelyn the Younger, English translator
• March 27 – Edward Stillingfleet, English theologian
• April 21 – Jean Racine, French dramatist
• April 22
• *Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz, German statesman and poet
• *Lady Anne Halkett, English memoirist
• November 23 – Joseph Beaumont, English clergyman, academic and poet
• December 16 – Erhard Weigel, German philosopher and mathematician