1657 in literature

• January – Madame de la Fayette returns to Paris, where she is introduced to, and becomes friends with, Madame de Sévigné.{{cite book|author=Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné|title=Lettres de Madame de Sévigné|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fqvU_L-mQ2kC&pg=PR128|year=1823|publisher=Dalibon|pages=128|language=fr}}
• March 2 – The Great Fire of Meireki in Edo, Japan, burns down the city's theatres, forcing actors to move to Osaka.{{cite book|author=Samuel L. Leiter|title=Historical Dictionary of Japanese Traditional Theatre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hCkvBQAAQBAJ&pg=PR23|date=30 October 2014|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4422-3911-1|pages=23–}}

• "William Allen" – Killing No Murder (variously attributed to Colonel Silius Titus, Edward Sexby or William Allen, an English Republican; Sexby admits authorship under duress){{cite book|author=Deborah W. Rooke|title=Handel's Israelite Oratorio Libretti: Sacred Drama and Biblical Exegesis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1M7BjsC2nWsC&pg=PA54|date=23 February 2012|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-927928-9|pages=54}}
• Cave Beck – The Universal Character
• Theodore Haak (translator) – The Dutch Annotations Upon the Whole Bible (original 1637)A. G. Keller, "Haak, Theodore (1605–1690)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, OUP 2004)

[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11827 Retrieved 25 July 2017]

• Li Yu (probable author) – The Carnal Prayer Mat (published 1693)
• Richard Ligon – A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes
• Jeremy Taylor – Discourse of the Nature, Offices and Measures of Friendship
• Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester – Polyglot Bible
• Baltasar Gracián – El criticón (third part)
• François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac – Pratique du théâtre
• Cyrano de Bergerac (posthumous) – L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon)
• Christiaan Huygens – De ratiociniis in ludo aleae
• Nihon Ōdai Ichiran (日本王代一覧, Table of the Rulers of Japan)
• Paul Scarron – Roman comique (Comic romance, publication concluded)

Les Jeux et plaisirs de l'enfanceChildren's Book Gallery [http://www.childrensbookgallery.net/shop/childrens/about-childrens-books.html Retrieved 11 April 2016.] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407041139/http://www.childrensbookgallery.net/shop/childrens/about-childrens-books.html |date=2016-04-07}}

• Anonymous – Lust's Dominion (published, falsely attributed in some impressions to Marlowe; probably by Dekker and others, written c.1600)
• Richard Brome – The Queen's Exchange (published)
• Sir Aston Cockayne – The Obstinate Lady (published)
• Lodowick Carlell
• The Fool Would be a Favorite, or The Discreet Lover (published)
• The Tragedy of Osmond the Great Turk, or the Noble Servant (published)
• George Gerbier d'Ouvilly – The False Favourite Disgraced, and the Reward of Loyalty (published)
• Franciscus van den Enden – Philedonius
• Andreas Gryphius – Katharina von Georgien
• Thomas Jordan – Fancy's Festivals (masque) (published)
• Thomas Middleton (died 1627)
• No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's (published)
• Two New Plays; first publication of Women Beware Women and More Dissemblers Besides Women

• William Davenant – Poems on Several Occasions
• Angelus Silesius – Heilige Seelenlust (collection of hymns)

• February 11 – Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle French author (died 1757)
• March 24 – Arai Hakuseki, Japanese scholar-bureaucrat and writer (died 1725)
• November 26 – William Derham, English natural philosopher and cleric (died 1735)
• unknown date – Matthew Tindal, English deist writer (died 1733)

• March 7 – Hayashi Razan (林羅山), Japanese philosopher (born 1583)
• April ? – Richard Lovelace, English Cavalier poet (born 1617){{cite book|first=Roberta Florence|last=Brinkley|title=English Poetry of the Seventeenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2k8qAAAAMAAJ|year=1942|publisher=Norton|page=462}}
• August 29 – John Lilburne, English writer and agitator (born c. 1614){{cite book|author=Anthony à Wood|title=Athenae Oxonienses: An Exact History of All the Writers and Bishops who Have Had Their Education in the University of Oxford. To which are Added the Fasti, Or Annals of the Said University|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qINPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA357|year=1817|publisher=Rivington|pages=357}}
• November 18 – Luke Wadding, Irish historian (born 1588)
• November 19 – Théodore Tronchin, Swiss theologian (born 1582)
• unknown dates
• Junije Palmotić, Ragusan (Dubrovnik) dramatist and poet (born c. 1606)
• Thomas Tuke, English controversialist and cleric (born c. 1580)
• probable – Thomas Bayly, English religious controversialist (born early 17th century){{cite book|author1=Charles George Herbermann|author2=Edward Aloysius Pace|author3=Condé Bénoist Pallen|title=The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kbFAAQAAIAAJ|year=1912|publisher=Robert Appleton Company}}

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