The year 1651 in literature involved some significant events.

  Events

• August 22 - Execution of Protestant preacher, Christopher Love, whose sermons were later published.

  New books

• Noah Biggs - Chymiatrophilos, mataeotechnia medicinae praxes: The Vanity of the Craft of Physick
• William Bosworth - The Chaste and Lost Lovers
• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery - Parthenissa (first section)
• William Cartwright - Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with Other Poems
• Mary Cary (Rande) - The Little Horn's Doom and Downfall and A New and More Exact Map of the New Jerusalem's Glory
• Marin le Roy de Gomberville - Jeune Alcidiane
• Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan
• John Milton - Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio...
• Filip Stanislavov - Abagar, first printed book in modern Bulgarian
• Anna Weamys - A Continuation of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia
• Sir Henry Wotton - Reliquiae Wottonianiae (posthumous).

  Published plays

• William Cartwright
  • The Lady Errant
  • The Ordinary
  • The Siege, or Love's Convert
• Thomas Randolph (attributed to) - Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery (adapted from Aristophanes' Plutus)
• Leonard Willan - Astraea, or True Love's Mirror (adapted from Honoré D'Urfé's L'Astrée)

  Poetry

• Sir William Davenant - Gondibert (second impression)
• Henry Vaughan - Olor Iscanus ("Swan of Usk")

  Births

• April 6 - André Dacier, classical scholar (died 1722)
• August 6 - François Fénelon, theologian (died 1715)
• October 24 - Jean de La Chapelle,
• November 12 (?) - Sor Juana, poet (died 1695)

  Deaths

• October 7 - Jacques Sirmond, scholar (born 1559)
• December 14 - Pierre Dupuy, French scholar (born 1582)
• date unknown
  • Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, poet and librettist (born 1606)
  • Adho Duraso, Rajasthani poet (born c. 1550)
  • Henry Rice, courtier and writer (born c. 1585)