1626 in literature

• February – The King's Men premiere Ben Jonson's satire on the new newsgathering enterprise The Staple of News, his first new play in almost a decade, at the Blackfriars Theatre in London.{{cite book|author=Ben Jonson|title=Five Plays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eXmjyZgJmQ4C&pg=PR18|year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-283944-2|pages=xviii}}
• November – The deaths of Lancelot Andrewes and Nicholas Felton, Bishop of Ely, prompt John Milton, then a student at Cambridge, to write elegies in Latin for both.{{cite book|author=Barbara K. Lewalski|title=The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVKh_Q-F1ucC&pg=PA24|date=15 April 2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-470-77684-1|pages=24–}}
• December 27 – Izaak Walton marries Rachel Floud (died 1640).Tara Hamling: "'An Arelome To This Hous For Ever': Monumental Fixtures and Furnishings..." Andrew Gordon and Thomas Rist (eds): The Arts of Remembrance in Early Modern England: Memorial Cultures... (Abingdon, Oxon/New York: Routledge, 2016 [2013]), p. 68.

• Francis Bacon – The New Atlantis
• Nicholas Breton – Fantastickes
• Alonso de Castillo Solórzano – Jornadas alegres
• Robert Fludd – Philosophia Sacra[https://books.google.com/books?id=BhEOAAAAQAAJ "Roberti Fludd ..." Philosophia sacra et vere christiana seu meteorologia cosmica (Google eBook) Accessed 1 February 2013]
• Marie de Gournay – Les Femmes et Grief des Dames (The Ladies' Grievance)[http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Grief_des_dames Grief des dames.]
• Francisco de Quevedo – El Buscón (first published edition – unauthorized)

• Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft – Baeto, oft oorsprong der Holanderen
• John Fletcher and collaborators – The Fair Maid of the Inn
• William Heminges – The Jews' Tragedy
• Jean Mairet – La Sylvie
• Philip Massinger – A New Way to Pay Old Debts
• Thomas May – Cleopatra
• Thomas Middleton – The Triumphs of Health and Prosperity{{Cite web |url=http://thomasmiddleton.org/introscollected.php |title=The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton. Accessed 1 February 2013 |access-date=2013-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209101051/http://thomasmiddleton.org/introscollected.php |archive-date=2012-02-09 |url-status=dead }}
• Tirso de Molina – La Huerta de San Juan
• James Shirley – The Maid's Revenge; The Brothers

• January – Robert Howard, English dramatist and politician (died 1698)
• February 5 – Madame de Sévigné, French letter writer (died 1696){{cite book | last = Chevalier | first = Tracy | title = Encyclopedia of the essay | publisher = Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers | location = London Chicago | year = 1997 | isbn = 9781884964305 | page=764}}
• March 12 – John Aubrey, English antiquary and writer (died 1697){{cite book|author=John Britton|title=A Memoir of John Aubrey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5YDsAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24|date=28 August 2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-07344-8|pages=24}}
• July 25 – Gerard Brandt, Dutch dramatist and historian (died 1685){{cite book|author=Alexander Chalmers|title=The General Biographical Dictionary Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons|publisher=J. Nichols|year=1812|page=454}}
• September 8 – Simon Patrick, English theologian and bishop (died 1707){{cite DNB|wstitle=Patrick, Simon (1626-1707)|volume=44|author=Overton, John Henry|author-link=John Henry Overton}}
• October 6 – Géraud de Cordemoy, French historian, philosopher and lawyer (died 1684){{Cite book|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/cordemoy/|title=Géraud de Cordemoy|last=Ablondi|first=Fred|date=2014-01-01|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Fall 2014}}
• Unknown dates
• Elizabeth Egerton, Countess of Bridgewater, English poet and dramatist (died 1663){{cite book | last = Haselkorn | first = Anne | title = The Renaissance Englishwoman in print : counterbalancing the canon | publisher = University of Massachusetts Press | location = Amherst | year = 1990 | isbn = 9780870236907 | page=243}}
• Alonso de Olmedo y Ormeño, Spanish actor and dramatist (died 1682)

• February – William Rowley, English dramatist (born c. 1585){{cite book|author=Harold Bloom|title=The New Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism: Elizabethan-Caroline|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=thFaAAAAMAAJ|year=1986|publisher=Chelsea House Publishers|isbn=978-0-87754-781-5|page=1158}}
• February 28 – Cyril Tourneur, English dramatist (born 1575){{cite book|title=Renaissance Drama|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oj9dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA115|date=1 November 1980|publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education|isbn=978-1-349-16424-0|pages=115}}
• September 25
• Lancelot Andrewes, English scholar and bishop (born 1555){{cite book|author=Leonie James|title='This Great Firebrand': William Laud and Scotland, 1617-1645|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A7Q4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA32|year=2017|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-78327-219-8|pages=32}}
• Théophile de Viau, French poet and dramatist (born 1590)
• October 19 (estimated) – Béroalde de Verville, French poet and novelist (born 1556){{cite book|author=Guillaume Colletet|title=Vies des poètes tourangeaux|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FxonAAAAMAAJ|year=1989|publisher=Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature|page=17}}
• December 8 – Sir John Davies, English poet (born 1569)
• unknown date – Samuel Purchas, English miscellanist and travel writer (born c. 1577){{cite book|author=Charles Henry Cooper|title=Memorials of Cambridge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XhJEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA112|year=1861|publisher=William Metcalfe|pages=112}}
• probable – Nicholas Breton, English poet and novelist (born c. 1545){{cite book|author=Henry Morley|title=Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h8ZLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA238|year=1891|publisher=G. Routledge|isbn=978-0-8274-2026-7|pages=238}}

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Year in literature article categories}}