1540 in literature

• July 22 – Klemens Janicki is appointed poeta laureatus by Pope Paul III.{{cite book|author=John Flood|title=Poets Laureate in the Holy Roman Empire: A Bio-bibliographical Handbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B1ujbUq3NOcC&pg=PA947|date=8 September 2011|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-091274-6|pages=947}}
• December 13 – John Standish's religious work {{proper name|A lytle treatyse}} is printed by Elisabeth Pickering, the first work known to be printed in London by a woman.{{cite book|author1=Carole Levin|author2=Anna Riehl Bertolet|author3=Jo Eldridge Carney|title=A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen: Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500-1650|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kDglDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA242|date=3 November 2016|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-315-44071-2|pages=242–}}
• unknown dates
• The first known book from the first printing press in North America, set up in Mexico City, is published, Manual de Adultos.{{Cite web |title=The Press in Colonial America |work=A Publisher’s History of American Magazines — Background and Beginnings |url=http://www.themagazinist.com/uploads/Part_4_Colonial_Printers_and_Papers.pdf |access-date=2013-08-22 |archive-date=2016-06-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160627035434/http://themagazinist.com/uploads/Part_4_Colonial_Printers_and_Papers.pdf |url-status=dead }}
• Sir David Lyndsay's Middle Scots satirical morality play A Satire of the Three Estates is given a private first performance.
• Lazare de Baif travels with Pierre de Ronsard to Alsace, where they meet northern humanists.{{Cite book |editor=Weinberg, Bernard |title=French Poetry of the Renaissance |location=Carbondale, Ill. |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |edition=5th |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-8093-0135-5 |chapter=Pierre de Ronsard |page=70}}

File:De partu hominis V00223 00000004.tif

• Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo – {{lang|pt|Amadis de Gaula}} Book 1 (translated into French by Nicolas de Herberay des Essarts at request of Francis I of France)
• Hector Boece – Historia Scotorum (translated into Middle Scots by John Bellenden at request of James V of Scotland)
• Rösslin – The Byrth of Mankynde ({{lang|la|De partu hominis}}, translation attributed to Richard Jonas) First printed book in English on obstetrics and first book published in England with engraved plates. {{cite journal |title=The Byrth of Mankynde (Its Author and Editions) |pages=297–325 |first=J. W. |last=Ballantyne |doi=10.1111/j.1471-0528.1906.tb12722.x |pmc=5413625 |journal=The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire |volume=10 |issue=4 |date=October 1906 |pmid=29612085}}
• Georg Joachim Rheticus – De libris revolutionum Copernici narratio prima (abstract of Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium)

{{Main|1540 in poetry}}

• Tontada Siddhesavara – Shatsthala Jnanamrita{{cite book |last=Sastri |first=K. A. Nilakanta |title=A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar |orig-year=1955 |year=2002 |publisher=Indian Branch, Oxford University Press |location=New Delhi |isbn=978-0-19-560686-7 |page=362}}
• Souterliedekens (Dutch metrical psalter dedicated to and perhaps compiled by Willem van Zuylen van Nijevelt)

Approximate year

• Sir Thomas More – Lady Fortune{{cite book |editor=Cox, Michael |title=The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-19-860634-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/conciseoxfordchr00coxm}}
• Girolamo Schola – {{Lang|it|Capituli di M. Girolamo Schola sopra varii suggetti}}{{cite web |url=http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/rarebooks/italian_poems_1540.htm |title=Poems on everyday things |publisher=Bodleian Library |location=Oxford |access-date=2008-06-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070909110701/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/rarebooks/italian_poems_1540.htm |archive-date=2007-09-09 |url-status=dead}}

• January 26 – Florent Chrestien, French satirist and Latin poet (died 1596)
• June 11 – Barnabe Googe, English pastoral poet and translator (died 1594)
• unknown dates
• Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, French soldier, historian and poet (died 1614)
• Rhys Cain, Welsh-language poet (died 1614)
• Frei Agostinho da Cruz (brother of Diogo Bernardes), Portuguese poet (died 1619){{cite book |author=Preminger, Alex|author2=Brogan, T. V. F. |title=The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics |year=1993 |location=New York |publisher=MJF Books/Fine Communications |display-authors=etal}}

• May 6 – Juan Luis Vives, Spanish humanist polymath (born 1493){{EB1911|wstitle=Vives, Juan Luis}}
• May 22 – Francesco Guicciardini, Italian historian and statesman (born 1483)
• October 5 – Helius Eobanus Hessus, German Latin poet (born 1488)
• October – Robert Redman, London printer

{{reflist}}

{{Year in literature article categories}}