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Books(and other works) written by writers born prior to 1630(works by writers born 1630 and later coming soon). Ancient Greek and Roman Writers are not yet included. Books such as the Bible and the Quran are not yet included.


Beowulf by unknown
~700
'Song Before Drinking' and 'She Spins Silk' by Li Bai
~762
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
~1021
Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyám
1131
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
1321
Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
1353
Trionfi by Petrarch
~1368
Canzoniere by Petrarch
1368
Africa by Petrarch
1374
Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
~1385
Piers Plowman by William Landland
1387
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
~1399
'The Lays' and 'The Grand Testament' by François Villon
~1463
Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory
1485
Utopia by Thomas More
1516
Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
1532
Gargantua by François Rabelais
1564
The Lusiads by Luís Vaz de Camões
1572
Sonnets pour Hélène by Pierre de Ronsard
~1585
La Franciade by Pierre de Ronsard
~1585
Tamburlaine the Great by Christopher Marlowe
1587 or 1588
The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe
1589 or 1590
Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
1589 or 1593
El maestro de danzar(The Dancing Master) by Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio
1594
Noche de San Juan by Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio
?
Essais by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
1595
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
1595
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
1596
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
1599
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
1601
Volpone by Benjamin Jonson
1606
King Lear by William Shakespeare
1608
sonnets by William Shakespeare
1609
Songs and Sonnets by John Donne
1609-10
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
1615
The Alter by George Herbert
1633
Easter Wings by George Herbert
1633
Comus by John Milton
1634
Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño
1635
Medée by Pierre Corneille
1635
Le Cid by Pierre Corneille
1636
Lycidas by John Milton
1637
Areopagitica by John Milton
1644

ALSO SEE BELOW
SEE BELOW
To the Virgins to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick
1648
To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
early 1650s
Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
1664
Le Misanthrope by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
1666(06/04)
Paradise Lost by John Milton
1667
Fables choisies by Jean de La Fontaine
1668(03/31)
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
1670(10/14)
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
1678(02)
Tales of My Mother Goose by Charles Perrault
1695
To the Virgins to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick 1648 

    Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a-flying;
    And this same flower that smiles today
    To-morrow will be dying.

    The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
    The higher he's a-getting,
    The sooner will his race be run,
    And nearer he's to setting.

    That age is best which is the first,
    When youth and blood are warmer;
    But being spent, the worse, and worst
    Times still succeed the former.

    Then be not coy, but use your time,
    And, while ye may, go marry:
    For having lost but once your prime,
    You may forever tarry. 



To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell early 1650s 

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.


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