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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of1581.

• January –Francis Bacon takes his seat as anMP in theParliament of England for theCornish pocket borough ofBossiney.
• June 24 –Torquato Tasso'sepic poemJerusalem Delivered (La Gerusalemme liberata) is first published complete, apirated edition printed inParma being followed by an authorized edition fromFerrara, where the poet is confined in the Ospedale di Sant'Anna.^[1][2] Also this year,Aldus Manutius the Younger prints a selection of Tasso's lyrics and prose in Venice.

Uncertain dates

• Stationer Thomas Marsh publishesSeneca's Tragedies in English, a collected edition of ten dramas written bySeneca the Younger (or attributed to him), translated byJasper Heywood,John Studley,Alexander Neville,Thomas Newton, andThomas Nuce. Most of the texts have been printed previously, from 1559 onward; but Newton's version ofThebais is new, and earlier printed texts of Studley's versions ofHercules Oetaeus andHippolytus, if they ever existed, have not survived.^[3]
• John Dee starts to writeLibri mysteriorum I-XVIII (Spiritual Diaries).
• First record of bookselling at No. 1,Trinity Street, Cambridge, England; it will continue to be a bookshop for at least 430 years.^[4]

• Church of Scotland –The Second Book of Discipline^[5]
• William Lambarde –Eirenarcha: or of the Office of the Justices of Peace
• Ostrog Bible
• Barnabe Riche –Riche his Farewell to Militarie Professionconteiningverie pleasaunt discourses fit for a peaceable tyme

• Edward Forsett –Pedantius (Latin)
• George Peele –The Arraignment of Paris (a pastoral)
• Nathaniel Woodes –The Conflict of Conscience

• Torquato Tasso –Jerusalem Delivered

• January 4 –James Ussher, Anglo-Irish archbishop and scholar (died1656)
• March 16 –Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Dutch Golden Age writer (died1647)
• June 18 (date of baptism) –Thomas Overbury, English poet and essayist (died1613)
• August 15 –Jeremias Drexel, German Jesuit writer (died1638)
• November 11 (date of baptism) –Henry Adamson, Scottish poet and historian (died1637)

Uncertain dates

• Christoph Helvig, German historian and theologian (died1617)
• Charles Malapert, Belgian Jesuit writer (died1630)
• Hieronim Morsztyn, Polish poet (died1623)

Probable year

• Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, Mexican dramatist (died1639)

• June 16 –Thomas Wilson, English rhetorician (born1524)
• September 1 –Guru Ram Das, Sikh guru (born1534)
• September 6 –Guillaume Postel, French linguist (born1510)
• September 28 –Achilles Statius, Portuguese humanist writer (born1524)
• September 29Andreas Musculus, German theologian (born1514)
• November 7 –Richard Davies, Welsh bishop and scholar (born c. 1505)

Uncertain dates

• Georgette de Montenay, French courtier and author of emblem book (born1540)
• Morys Clynnog, Welsh author writing in Welsh (born c. 1525)
• Nicholas Sanders, English Catholic propagandist (born1530)

• 1581 in literature
• Years of the 16th century in literature

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