1696 in literature

• January – Colley Cibber's play ''Love's Last Shift'' is first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. • March 5 – William Penn marries his second wife, Hannah Callowhill. • November 21 – John Vanbrugh's first play, the comedy The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger, a sequel to ''Love's Last Shift'', is first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with Cibber in the cast. • unknown date • The Tuscan poet Vincenzo da Filicaja becomes governor of Volterra. • Chapbook peddlers in England are required to hold a licence. ==New books==

Fiction • John Aubrey – Miscellanies • Philip Ayres – The Revengeful Mistress • Aphra Behn (died 1689) – The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn • Charles Leslie – The Snake in the Grass • Mary Pix – ''The Inhumane Cardinal; or, Innocence Betray'd'' (novel) • John Suckling – The Works of Sir John Suckling • John Tillotson – The Works of John Tillotson Drama • John Banks – Cyrus the Great, or The Tragedy of Love • Aphra Behn – The Younger Brother • Colley Cibber – ''Love's Last Shift'' • Thomas D'Urfey – The Comical History of Don Quixote. The Third Part • George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne – The She-Gallants • Joseph Harris – The City Bride; or, The Merry Cuckold (adapted from A Cure for a Cuckold) • Delarivier Manley • The Lost Lover, or The Jealous Husband • The Royal Mischief • Peter Anthony Motteux • ''Love's a Jest'' • She Ventures and He Wins • Mary Pix • The Spanish Wives • Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperour of the Turks • Edward Ravenscroft – The Anatomist, or the Sham Doctor • Thomas Southerne – Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave: a tragedy (adapted from Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko - published) • John Vanbrugh – The Relapse • John Oldmixon – Poems on Several Occasions • Elizabeth Singer Rowe – Poems on Several Occasions • Nahum Tate – Miscellanea Sacra; or, Poems on Divine & Moral Subjects Non-fiction • Richard Baxter – Reliquiae Baxterianae (posthumous) • John Bellers – Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry • Gerard Croese – The General History of the Quakers (translation) • Judith Drake (attributed) – An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (anonymous) • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – ''Analyse des infiniment petits pour l'intelligence des lignes courbes'' • Delarivier Manley – Letters Written by Mrs. Manley • William Penn – Primitive Christianity Revived in the Faith and Practice of the People called Quakers • John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby – The Character of Charles II, King of England • John Toland – Christianity not Mysterious • William Whiston – A New Theory of the Earth ==Births==

• July 14 – William Oldys, English antiquary, bibliographer and poet (died 1761) • September 25 – Madame du Deffand, French literary hostess (died 1780) • October 13 – John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey, English memoirist and courtier (died 1743) • Unknown date – Matthew Green, English writer of light verse and customs official (died 1737) ==Deaths==

• January 3 – Mary Mollineux, English Quaker poet (born c.1651) • March 14 – Jean Domat, French jurist (born 1625) • March 18 – Bonaventura Baron, Irish theologian, philosopher and writer in Latin (born 1610) • April 17 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, French author (born 1626) • April 27 – Simon Foucher, French polemic philosopher (born 1644) • May 10 – Jean de La Bruyère, French essayist (born 1645) • June 9 – Antoine Varillas, French historian (born 1626) • August 9 – Wacław Potocki, Polish nobleman (Szlachta), moralist, Baroque poet and writer (born 1621) • September 8 – Henry Birkhead, English academic, lawyer, Latin poet and founder of the Oxford Chair of Poetry (born 1617) • November 26 – Gregório de Matos, Brazilian Baroque poet (born 1636) • December 31 – Samuel Annesley, English Puritan minister noted for his sermons (born c.1620) • Unknown dates • Jón Magnússon, Icelandic writer (born c. 1610) • Gesshū Sōko (月舟宗胡), Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher, poet and calligrapher (born 1618) ==References==