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.

1976 - 2000 of 43197

Search by

-
Event origin
Event type

Aphra Behn: Late 1668

Women writers item
Author event in Aphra Behn

Late 1668

AB , facing prison for her debt of £150, petitioned the king for arrears of payment.
Leibell, Sister Helen Dominica. Anglo-Saxon Education of Women: From Hilda to Hildegarde. B. Franklin, 1971.
127
Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
119

Lady Anne Clifford: 9 October 1668

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Anne Clifford

9 October 1668

One of LAC 's granddaughters, Margaret's daughter Cecilia, gave birth to her first child (a daughter) in London, who was christened Anne on October 18; Lady Anne was a godmother.
Clifford, Lady Anne. The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford. Editor Clifford, David J. H., Alan Sutton, 1991.
191-2
Spence, Richard T. Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery. Sutton Publishing, 1997.
169, 247

Rebecca Travers: 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Rebecca Travers

1669

RT published A Testimony for God's Everlasting Truth.
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.

Mary Penington: 1669-73

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Penington

1669-73

MP , with great business acumen, bought and fitted up a house at Woodside near Amersham, Buckinghamshire, to stand in for those confiscated.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Sir Isaac Newton: Early 1669

Building item
Author event in Sir Isaac Newton

Early 1669

Isaac Newton realised from his work on optics the potential superiority of a reflecting telescope to the refracting telescopes used so far. He constructed the first reflecting telescope, quickly followed by an improved model.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1669: William Penn published No Cross, no Crown,...

Writing climate item

1669

William Penn published No Cross, no Crown, a manifesto on behalf of the Quakers .
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.

1669: G. J. Guilleragues published, anonymously,...

Writing climate item

1669

G. J. Guilleragues published, anonymously, Lettres portugaises (sometimes called Letters of a Portuguese Nun).
Day, Robert Adams. Told in Letters: Epistolary Fiction Before Richardson. University of Michigan Press, 1966, http://U of A HS.
32
Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
490n12
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

Susanna Wesley: 20 January 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Susanna Wesley

20 January 1669

Susanna Annesley (later SW ) was born, probably at her parents' home in Spital Yard, Bishopsgate, London; she was the youngest surviving child, traditionally said to be the twenty-fifth.
Seven girls and two boys...

Hannah Wolley: February 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Hannah Wolley

February 1669

HW made her will, bequeathing some of her earned money to her children.
Hobby, Elaine. “A woman’s best setting out is silence: the writings of Hannah Wolley”. Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration: Literature, Drama, History, edited by Gerald Maclean, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 179-00.
182-3

Alice Thornton: About 2 February 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Alice Thornton

About 2 February 1669

AT was engaged in writing her first version of the life-story which she called My first Booke of my Life, designed to vindicate her own conduct against slander. It became the first stage in...

Lady Lucy Herbert : 1668 or 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Lucy Herbert

1668 or 1669

LLH was born at the fortified stronghold of Powis Castle in Montgomeryshire, the youngest but one of a large and distinguished Roman Catholic family.
Henrietta Tayler gives the year of her birth as 1668...

29 March 1669: Christopher Wren (whose ambitious plans for...

Building item

29 March 1669

Christopher Wren (whose ambitious plans for redesigning and rebuilding London after the Great Fire of September 1666 were already well-known) was appointed Surveyor of the King's Works.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Christopher Wren

Frances Boothby: Between spring and autumn 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Frances Boothby

Between spring and autumn 1669

FB 's Marcelia; or, The Treacherous Friend, a tragicomedy, was performed by the King's Company at Bridges Street, Drury Lane, before Aphra Behn began her theatrical career.
Milling, Jane. “’In the Female Coasts of Fame’: women’s dramatic writing on the public stage, 1669-71”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 2, 2000, pp. 267-93.
277

31 May 1669: Samuel Pepys, fearing he was going blind,...

Writing climate item

31 May 1669

Samuel Pepys , fearing he was going blind, wrote in his diary for the last time.
Pepys, Samuel. Diary. Editor Wheatley, Henry B., G. Bell and Sons, 1952, 8 vols.
8: 313

Lady Rachel Russell: 20 August 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Rachel Russell

20 August 1669

The young widow Rachel, Lady Vaughan , married William Russell , and acquired the name by which she is known to history.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Schwoerer, Lois. Lady Rachel Russell: "One of the Best of Women". Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
45

Anne Bradstreet: 31 August 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Anne Bradstreet

31 August 1669

Three years before her death, AB wrote a poem in couplets in which she expresses a longing for rest. The piece begins As weary pilgrim, and ends Lord make me ready for that day, /...

Marie-Catherine de Villedieu: 25 September 1669 - 1671

Writing climate item

25 September 1669 - 1671

There appeared through Barbin of Paris, in stages, a six-volume historical novel or collection of tales, Le Journal Amoureux, which began as a project of MCV for adapting a work by another writer.
Cuénin, Micheline. Roman et société sous Louis XIV : Madame de Villedieu (Marie-Catherine Desjardins 1640-1683). Atelier Reproduction des Thèses & Librairie Honoré; Champion, 1979.
19
Morrissette, Bruce Archer. The Life and Works of Marie-Catherine Desjardins. 1947.
83
Klein, Nancy Deighton. The Female Protagonist in the Nouvelles of Madame de Villedieu. Peter Lang, 1992.
183

Lady Jane Cavendish: 8 October 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Jane Cavendish

8 October 1669

Lady Jane Cheyne (formerly Cavendish) died, apparently of epileptic fits. She was not yet fifty.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Margaret Fell: 27 October 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Margaret Fell

27 October 1669

After eleven years of widowhood, MF was married at Bristol to George Fox , with whom she had already been a fellow-worker for years.
Phyllis Mack apparently gives the date in Old Style, as 18 October.
Mack, Phyllis. Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England. University of California Press, 1992.
303
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Fox, George, 1624 - 1691 et al. The Journal of George Fox. Editor Nickalls, John L., Cambridge University Press, 1952.
555n2

Susanna Centlivre: Shortly before 20 November 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Susanna Centlivre

Shortly before 20 November 1669

Susanna Freeman (later SC ) was, probably, born at this time at Whaplode in Lincolnshire.
Feminist Companion Archive.
Lock, F. P. Susanna Centlivre. Twayne, 1979.
17

Elizabeth White: 5 December 1669

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth White

5 December 1669

EW died in childbirth, as she had foreseen she would, at only a little over thirty.
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.

Sarah, Lady Cowper: 1670

Women writers item
Author event in Sarah, Lady Cowper

1670

SLC began compiling a commonplace-book, Poems and Sayings. It was apparently the first-begun of eleven books of a similar type, whose collecting occupied her until 1700.
Kugler, Anne. Errant Plagiary: The Life and Writing of Lady Sarah Cowper, 1644-1720. Stanford University Press, 2002.
259

Sarah Davy, 1639 - 1670: 1670

Women writers item
Author event in Sarah Davy, 1639 - 1670

1670

SD died at only just past thirty.
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.

Sarah Davy, 1639 - 1670: 1670

Women writers item
Author event in Sarah Davy, 1639 - 1670

1670

Following the early death of SD this year, her religious meditation or conversion narrative (Baptist or Independent ) was posthumously published as Heaven Realiz'd.
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.
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.

Sarah Fyge: 1670

Women writers item
Author event in Sarah Fyge

1670

SF was born in London, one of a family of six daughters.
Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press, 1993.
204