Events Timeline

Orlando includes short event entries, freestanding and embedded in author profiles, about moments and processes relevant to literary history and organized into four categories: Women writers, Writing Climate, Political Climate, and Social Climate. Explore the timelines by searching for date(s) and/or words or phrases associated with them.

1601 - 1625 of 43197

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Dorothy Osborne: 25 December 1654

Women writers item
Author event in Dorothy Osborne

25 December 1654

DO , still looking terrible after smallpox, married Sir William Temple .
Osborne, Dorothy. The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple. Editor Smith, G. C. Moore, Clarendon Press, 1928.
183
Temple, Sir William, and Martha, Lady Giffard. The Early Essays and Romances of Sir William Temple Bt. Editor Smith, G. C. Moore, Clarendon Press, 1930.
7

Anne Audland: Early 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Audland

Early 1655

While in prison at BanburyAA published a tract entitled A True Declaration of the Suffering of the Innocent . . . Declared in a letter.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

Elizabeth Bathurst : About 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Bathurst

About 1655

EB was born in London, her parents' eldest child.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Bathurst, Elizabeth. Truth Vindicated. T. Sowle, 1691.
a

Margaret Cavendish: 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Margaret Cavendish

1655

Margaret Cavendish , Marchioness of Newcastle, published another magpie volume of scraps: The Worlds Olio.
The word olio means a highly-flavoured dish composed of variegated ingredients.
Grant, Douglas. Margaret the First: A Biography of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, 1623-1673. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957.
240

Margaret Cavendish: 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Margaret Cavendish

1655

Margaret Cavendish , Marchioness of Newcastle, published The Philosophical and Physical Opinions.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Margaret Fell: 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Margaret Fell

1655

MF wrote her first two letters to Cromwell ; she followed them with a third and fourth in 1656 and 1657.
Kunze, Bonnelyn Young. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. Macmillan, 1994.
xi

Marie-Catherine de Villedieu: January 1655

Writing climate item

January 1655

Marie-Catherine Desjardins was only about fifteen when she entered into a clandestine engagement with a cousin, which was broken off the next month by her father .
Cuénin, Micheline. Roman et société sous Louis XIV : Madame de Villedieu (Marie-Catherine Desjardins 1640-1683). Atelier Reproduction des Thèses & Librairie Honoré; Champion, 1979.
17
Kuizenga, Donna. “Madame de Villeneuve”. Seventeenth-Century French Writers, edited by Françoise Jaouen, Gale, 2003.
385

Winefrid Thimelby: From 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Winefrid Thimelby

From 1655

From about now until the year of her death, WT wrote those of her personal, family letters which survive.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Latz, Dorothy L., editor. “Neglected Writings by Recusant Women”. Neglected English Literature: Recusant Writings of the 16th-17th Centuries, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1997.
29, 33

Lady Hester Pulter: 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Hester Pulter

1655

LHP apparently began on the composition of her prose romance, The Unfortunate Florinda; she seems to have continued to work on it until 1662.
Pulter, Lady Hester. “Introduction”. Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, edited by Alice Eardley, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2014, pp. 1-40.
36-7, 21, 4

1655-6: In each of these years, in 1660, in 1671,...

Writing climate item

1655-6

In each of these years, in 1660, in 1671, and in almost every year from 1677 to 1692, there were ten or more original works of fiction published in England.
Downie, James Alan. “Mary Davys’s ’Probable Feign’d Stories’ and Critical Shibboleths about ’The Rise of the Novel’”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
12
, No. 2-3, Jan.–Apr. 2000, pp. 309-26.
311

1655: An inscription was placed on a special two-person...

Building item

1655

An inscription was placed on a special two-person bench in a church at Ferryside in Wales, designed for married couples to do public penance for quarrelling.
Gillis, John R. For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present. Oxford University Press, 1985.
77-8

1655: The Commonwealth government under Cromwell...

Building item

1655

The Commonwealth government under Cromwell clamped down on non-government-sanctioned periodicals.
Suarez, Michael F. “The Business of Literature: The Book Trade in England from Milton to Blake”. A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake, edited by David Womersley, Blackwell, 2000, pp. 131-47.
145

Anne Audland: 8 February 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Audland

8 February 1655

AA wrote to Margaret Fell from Banbury calling her My dear and precious sister in whom my life is bound up . . . . My heart is open into thy bosom.
qtd. in
Mack, Phyllis. Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England. University of California Press, 1992.
153-4 and n68

Anne Audland: Early 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Audland

Early 1655

AA stayed at Banbury in Oxfordshire while her husband went on to Bristol; there, after standing public trial for blasphemy, she was imprisoned for eighteen months.
Phyllis Mack gives a date of 1654 to one...

Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette: 15 February 1655

Writing climate item

15 February 1655

Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne married François Mottier, comte de la Fayette, a member of a distinguished French family.
Haig, Stirling. Madame de Lafayette. Twayne, 1970.
12

Katherine Philips: 23 April 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Katherine Philips

23 April 1655

KP bore a son, Hector, who died, she said, at forty days old.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
13
Philips, Katherine. Collected Works. Editors Thomas, Patrick et al., Stump Cross Books, 1990–1993, 3 vols.
1: 220

11 May 1655: England captured the island of Jamaica from...

National or international item

11 May 1655

England captured the island of Jamaica from the Spanish.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
II: 575
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
186

Lady Jane Cavendish: 15 May 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Jane Cavendish

15 May 1655

LJC married a suitably royalist husband, Charles Cheyne (who had estates at Cogenhoe in Northamptonshire), at St Giles, Cripplegate, London.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Hester Biddle: 24 May 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Hester Biddle

24 May 1655

HB issued her two first tracts on the same day: the almost identical Wo to thee City of Oxford and Wo to thee Towne of Cambridge.
The date comes from George Thomason , an...

Susanna Hopton : 13 June 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Susanna Hopton

13 June 1655

Susanna Harvey was married at St Peter, Paul's Wharf (one of the London city churches not rebuilt after the Great Fire), to Richard Hopton , a lawyer whom she had known for some years.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Smith, Julia J. “Susanna Hopton: A Biographical Account”. Notes and Queries, Vol.
38
, June 1991, pp. 165-72.
169

Marie-Catherine de Villedieu: 7 July 1655

Writing climate item

7 July 1655

The mother of Marie-Catherine Desjardins obtained a legal separation from her husband , and succeeded in retaining her money in her own hands.
Cuénin, Micheline. Roman et société sous Louis XIV : Madame de Villedieu (Marie-Catherine Desjardins 1640-1683). Atelier Reproduction des Thèses & Librairie Honoré; Champion, 1979.
17
Kuizenga, Donna. “Madame de Villeneuve”. Seventeenth-Century French Writers, edited by Françoise Jaouen, Gale, 2003.
385

Mary Fisher: By October 1655

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Fisher

By October 1655

MF , now a Quaker missionary to foreign parts, landed in the West Indies (that is Barbados) in time for news of her arrival to reach England on 15 October.
Peters, Kate. Print Culture and the Early Quakers. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
142 and n3

October 1655: Manasseh ben Israel arrived in London to...

National or international item

October 1655

Manasseh ben Israel arrived in London to treat with Cromwell about the re-admission of the Jews to England.
“Jewish Encyclopedia”. JewishEncyclopedia.com, 2002.

27 November 1655: Cromwell issued an edict prohibiting Church...

National or international item

27 November 1655

Cromwell issued an edict prohibiting Church of England ministers from any preaching or teaching.
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Oxford University Press, 1959.
365

27 November 1655: Samuel Hartlib told John Evelyn of a new...

Writing climate item

27 November 1655

Samuel Hartlib told John Evelyn of a new copying invention: a special ink which enabled extra copies to be damp-pressed off papers written in it.
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Oxford University Press, 1959.
364