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The year '1609 in literature' involved some significant events.

Contents

Events

New books

New drama

New poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Events

★ The ''Sea Venture'' is wrecked in Bermuda - thought to be the inspiration for Shakespeare's ''The Tempest''.

★ William Ames delivers a controversial sermon on St Thomas's Day.

★ Samuel Daniel completes the eighth and last book of his epic poem, ''Civil Wars''.

★ Jacques Auguste de Thou's ''Historia sui temporis'' is placed on the ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum''.

★ The ''Sala Fredericiana'', the first reading room of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, opens to the public.

★ Francis Tregian the Younger is imprisoned for his Catholic sympathies, and begins copying out the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

New books

★ Douai Bible

★ Thomas Middleton - ''Sir Robert Sherley his Entertainmnt in Cracovia'' (translation)

★ Thomas Dekker - ''Fourre Birds of Noahs Arke'' and ''The Gul's Hornebooke''

New drama

★ William Shakespeare - ''Pericles, Prince of Tyre'' and ''Troilus and Cressida'' published

New poetry

★ William Shakespeare - ''The Sonnets'' and ''A Lover's Complaint''

Non-fiction

★ William Rowley - ''A Search for Money''

Births

★ February 10 - Sir John Suckling, poet (died 1642)

★ February 18 - Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, historian (died 1674)

★ August 19 - Jean Rotrou, dramatist (died 1650)

★ October 5 - Paul Fleming, poet (died 1640)

★ December 24 - Philip Warwick, politician and memoirist (died 1683)

★ ''date unknown'' - Gerrard Winstanley, political writer (died 1676)

★ ''probable'' - Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède, novelist and dramatist (died 1663)

Deaths

★ January 21 - Joseph Justus Scaliger, French Protestant writer (born 1540)

★ March 9 - William Warner, poet (born c1558)

★ August 22 - Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Jewish mystic and philosopher (born 1525)

★ October 19 - Jacobus Arminius, theologian (born 1560)

★ December 4 - Alexander Hume, poet (born c1560)

★ 'December' - Barnabe Barnes, poet (born c1568)

★ ''probable'' - Mateo Alemán, Spanish novelist and man of letters (born 1547)