This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1690.

Events

• December 10 – Playwright Henry Nevil Payne is tortured for his role in the Montgomery Plot to restore James II to the throne — the last time a political prisoner is subjected to torture in Britain.
• Colley Cibber becomes an actor with the Drury Lane company.

New books

Prose

• Nicholas Barbon – A Discourse of Trade
• Pierre Bayle (attributed) – Avis important aux réfugiés
• Sir Thomas Browne (posthumously) – A Letter to a Friend
• Antoine Furetière (posthumously) – Dictionnaire universel
• John Locke
  • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (dated this year but published 1689)
  • Two Treatises of Government
• Samuel Pepys – Memoires of the Navy
• Baro Urbigerus – Aphorismi Urbigerani

Drama

• John Bancroft – King Edward III, with the Fall of Mortimer, Earl of March
• Aphra Behn (posthumously) – The Widow Ranter
• Thomas Betterton – The Prophetess, or The History of Dioclesian (adapted from Fletcher and Massinger's The Prophetess, with music by Henry Purcell)
• Edmé Boursault – Esope à la ville
• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Mr. Anthony
• John Crowne – The English Friar
• John Dryden
  • Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias
  • Don Sebastian
• William Mountfort – The Successful Strangers
• George Powell
  • Alphonso, King of Naples
  • The Treacherous Brothers
• Elkanah Settle – Distress'd Innocence, or The Princess of Persia
• Thomas Shadwell – The Scourers
• Thomas Southerne – Sir Anthony Love
• "W. C." – The Rape Reveng'd, or the Spanish Revolution (adapted from William Rowley's All's Lost by Lust)

Poetry

• Thomas D'Urfey:
  • Collin's Walk Through London and Westminster^[1]
  • New Poems
• See also 1690 in poetry
• Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza – Obras líricas y cómicas, divinas y humanas

Births

• February 3 – Richard Rawlinson, English antiquary and cleric (died 1755)
• September 12 – Peter Dens, Netherlandish theologian (died 1775)
• 1689/90 – Susanna Highmore, English poet (died 1750)

Deaths

• March 21 – Henry Teonge, English diarist and cleric (born 1621)
• May 5 – Theodore Haak, German-born English translator and natural philosopher (born 1605)
• May 12 – John Rushworth, English author of Historical Collections (born c. 1612)
• October 3 – Robert Barclay, Scottish Quaker writer (born c. 1648)
• October 25 – Cornelius Hazart, Dutch Jesuit controversialist (born 1617)
• Unknown date – Franciscus Plante, Dutch poet (born 1613)^[2]
• Probable year of death – Jeremias Felbinger, German writer, teacher and lexicographer (born 1616)