1660s

5 books

sort genre era

Hudibras Samuel Butler
If you enjoy watching a pompous Puritan knight lose an argument to his own squire (and a fight to a bear-baiting crowd), the rhymes alone will keep you grinning. Fair warning, the 1660s in-jokes get thick, so it rewards patience and a good footnoted edition.
Paradise Lost John Milton
Satan gets all the best lines, and watching him talk himself into ruin is half the pull; the verse is dense and takes a slow ear, but once the rhythm clicks it carries you. Read it aloud when you can, even a page at a time.
Tartuffe Molière, translated by Curtis Hidden Page
You'll spend most of it wanting to shake Orgon, who's so besotted with his pious houseguest that he ignores everyone, including his sharp-tongued maid Dorine, who steals every scene she's in. It's fast, mean, very funny, and reads in an evening.
The Adventurous Simplicissimus Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, translated by Alfred Thomas Scrope Goodrick
You get a wildly episodic, darkly funny ride through the Thirty Years’ War, as the naïve Simplicius survives soldiers, hermits, tricksters, and sudden changes of fortune. It’s shaggy and sometimes preachy, but its mud, hunger, bawdy absurdity, and sharp eye for human folly still feel startlingly alive.
The Blazing World Margaret Cavendish
Half of it is a woman becoming empress of a world run by bear-men and fish-men, half is long philosophical debates, and then Cavendish writes herself in as her own character. Deeply weird, sometimes shapeless, and weirdly ahead of its time if you have patience for 1666 prose.

tale.fyi

1660s

5 books

sort genre era

Hudibras Samuel Butler
If you enjoy watching a pompous Puritan knight lose an argument to his own squire (and a fight to a bear-baiting crowd), the rhymes alone will keep you grinning. Fair warning, the 1660s in-jokes get thick, so it rewards patience and a good footnoted edition.
Paradise Lost John Milton
Satan gets all the best lines, and watching him talk himself into ruin is half the pull; the verse is dense and takes a slow ear, but once the rhythm clicks it carries you. Read it aloud when you can, even a page at a time.
Tartuffe Molière, translated by Curtis Hidden Page
You'll spend most of it wanting to shake Orgon, who's so besotted with his pious houseguest that he ignores everyone, including his sharp-tongued maid Dorine, who steals every scene she's in. It's fast, mean, very funny, and reads in an evening.
The Adventurous Simplicissimus Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, translated by Alfred Thomas Scrope Goodrick
You get a wildly episodic, darkly funny ride through the Thirty Years’ War, as the naïve Simplicius survives soldiers, hermits, tricksters, and sudden changes of fortune. It’s shaggy and sometimes preachy, but its mud, hunger, bawdy absurdity, and sharp eye for human folly still feel startlingly alive.
The Blazing World Margaret Cavendish
Half of it is a woman becoming empress of a world run by bear-men and fish-men, half is long philosophical debates, and then Cavendish writes herself in as her own character. Deeply weird, sometimes shapeless, and weirdly ahead of its time if you have patience for 1666 prose.