1642 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1642. Events May – The 35-year-old John Milton marries the teenage Mary Powell. A few weeks later she leaves him in London and returns to her family in Oxfordshire. May/June – English Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace is incarcerated in the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster for defying Parliament. During his time there he may be writing "To Althea, from Prison". September 2 – The theatres in London are closed by the Puritan government; the "lascivious mirth and levity" of stage plays are to "cease and be forborn" for the next 18 years, during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew is reportedly staged on the final day, making it the last to be performed in the era of English Renaissance theatre. New books Prose Thomas Browne – Religio Medici Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède – Cassandre Thomas Fuller – The Holy State and the Profane State Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft – Nederduytsche Historiën (History of the Netherlands, publication begins) Sir Walter Ralegh – The Prince, or Maxims of State Alonso de Castillo Solórzano – La garduña de Sevilla y anzuelo de las bolsas Tohfatu'l-Ahbab, a Persian-language work by Muhammad Ali Kashmiri