1683 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1683. Events May 17 – Jordaan Luchtmans, the predecessor of Brill Publishers, is registered as a bookseller by the Leiden booksellers' guild. May 25 – Lancelot Addison is appointed Dean of Lichfield. June 26 – Madame de La Fayette is widowed. August/September – John Locke flees to the Netherlands, under suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot in England. November 4 – Marriage of André Dacier and Anne Lefèvre in Paris. December 7 – English parliamentarian Algernon Sidney is executed for treason, based largely on the anti-monarchist views expressed in his Discourses Concerning Government. unknown dates John Banks' historical play The Innocent Usurper, about Lady Jane Grey, is banned from the stage by the censors. A public library is first recorded at Kirkwall on Orkney. New books Fiction Alexander Oldys (?) – The London Jilt; or, the Politick Whore "Abbé du Prat" (pseudonym) – Venus in the Cloister; or, The Nun in her Smock (Vénus dans le cloître, ou la Religieuse en chemise)