The year 1673 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• With the death of Sir Henry Herbert, Thomas Killigrew is appointed Master of the Revels. Killigrew and the King's Company revive Killigrew's The Parson's Wedding with an all-female cast, a tactic first used in a 1664 production.
• In response to events of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, John Dryden's topical play Amboyna, about events in the East Indies, is reportedly "contrived and written in a month" — certainly one of the fastest acts of solo dramatic composition known. The drama premiers onstage in May.
• Elkanah Settle's tragedy The Empress of Morocco, acted by the Duke's Company, is published in quarto; in addition to its frontispiece illustration, the quarto contains five woodcuts depicting scenes in the play — the first English play text illustrated in this way. Settle's play also inspires a farce with the same title, probably by Thomas Duffet, performed by the King's Company and published the following year.

New books

• Bathsua Makin - An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen
• England's appeal from the Private Cabal at Whitehall to the Great Council of the Nation by a true Lover of his Country - pamphlet attributed to Sir William Coventry
• Francis Kirkman - The Unlucky Citizen
• Johannes Schefferus - Lapponia
• Shugi Washo
• Thomas Traherne - Roman Forgeries

New drama

• Aphra Behn - The Dutch Lover
• Sir William Davenant - News from Plymouth, The Law Against Lovers, The Fair Favourite, and The Siege published posthumously
• John Dryden - Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants
  • - Marriage à la Mode
• Molière - Le malade imaginaire
• Henry Nevil Payne - The Fatal Jealousy
• Edward Ravenscroft - The Careless Lovers
• Elkanah Settle - The Empress of Morocco

Poetry

• Poems of Mr. John Milton (2nd edition)

Births

• January 1 - Johannes Kelpius, German Pietist writer (died 1708)
• October 26 - Dimitrie Cantemir, first author of a book in Romanian (died 1723)
• date unknown
  • George Lockhart, Scottish politician and writer (died 1731)
  • John Oldmixon, English historian (died 1742)

Deaths

• February 17 - Molière (born 1622)
• March - Joseph Caryl, Nonconformist theologian (born 1602)
• March 15 - Salvator Rosa, Italian painter and poet (born 1615)
• June 25 - D'Artagnan, soldier, inspiration for Dumas' character
• December - Margaret Cavendish, poet and biographer (born 1623)
• date unknown
  • Richard Braithwaite, English poet (born 1588)
  • Ingen, Chinese Buddhist poet (born 1592)
  • Katarina Zrinska, Croatian poet (born c. 1625)