• January 25 – Missionary, writer and poet José de Anchieta is one of the founders of the city of São Paulo, Brazil.^[1]
• unknown date – Publication of Menno Simons' Uytgangh ofte bekeeringhe begins the Dutch Golden Age of literature.

Prose edit

• Matteo Bandello
  • Novelle
  • Prima Parte
• Edmund Bonner – Profitable and Necessary Doctryne^[2]
• Charles Estienne – Praedium Rusticum
• Johannes Magnus – Historia de omnibus gothorum sueonumque regibus (History of all Kings of Goths and Swedes)
• Tepetlaoztoc Codex
• Lazarillo de Tormes (anonymous)
• Adrianus Turnebus's edition of Corpus Hermeticum
• Approximate year:
• Título de Totonicapán (anonymous Kʼicheʼ language document)

Poetry edit

• Anacreontea (Greek poems of 1st century BC – 6th century AD, published for first time by Henri Estienne)

• March 22 – Catherine de Parthenay, French Huguenot noblewoman, mathematician, poet, playwright and translator (died 1631)
• October 20 – Bálint Balassi, Hungarian poet (died 1594)
• November 11 – Luis de la Puente, Spanish theologian (died 1624)
• November 30 – Sir Philip Sidney, English soldier and poet (died 1586)
• Unknown date – Anrakuan Sakuden, Japanese poet (died 1642)
• probable – Sir Walter Raleigh, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy and explorer (died 1618)^[3]

• January 16 – Christiern Pedersen, Danish scholar, writer and printer (born c. 1480)
• April 23 – Gaspara Stampa, Italian poet (born 1523)
• June 24 – Feliciano de Silva, Spanish writer (born c. 1491)
• September 8 – Johann Wild, German Bible commentator (born 1497)