1639 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1639. Events c. January – The first printing press in British North America is launched in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Stephen Daye. February 14 – French writers Jacques Esprit and François de La Mothe Le Vayer are elected to the Académie française. May 21 – The King's Men act John Fletcher's The Mad Lover in London. December – Blaise Pascal's family move to Rouen. December 7 – Francisco de Quevedo is arrested and imprisoned at León, Spain. unknown dates Simon Dach becomes professor of poetry at the University of Königsberg. Archbishop William Laud donates the manuscript of the Peterborough Chronicle to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Thomas Heywood writes Londini Status Pacatus, the Lord Mayor of the City of London's annual pageant. It will be the last such in London for 15 years, due to the English Civil War, but will resume under the Commonwealth. New books Prose Jean du Vergier de Hauranne – Théologie familière, ou Instruction de ce que le Chrétien doit croire et faire en cette vie pour être sauvé Francisco de Quevedo – La isla de los monopantos Jan Marek Marci – De proportione motus seu regula sphygmica Friedrich Spanheim – Commentaire historique de la vie et de la mort de . . Christofle Vicomte de Dohna Henry Spelman (ed.) – Concilia, Decreta, Leges, Constitutiones in re Ecclesiarum Orbis Britannici (3 vols, containing many forgeries)