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He was born in a village rectory near Oundle in Northamptonshire and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a professional writer throughout his life. His early plays, often heroic tragedy, met with highly variable success but served to promote his name and his Royalist sentiments. Arriving in London during the Protectorate, he attempted to capitalise on the Parliamentarian sympathies of his family, but failed to make much impact until the Restoration of King Charles II. His poem, Astrea Redux, in honour of this event, made him a name.

Dryden turned to the stage for a living, and soon became the most successful dramatist of the decade following the Restoration. He wrote in both of the dominant genres of the period: heroic verse drama and comedy of manners. He wrote for money, and claimed that the only one of his plays he cared for was All For Love ( 1677).

The Indian Emperor is a wholly fictitious account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards.

Dryden was a contentious personality, and frequently entered upon literary wars with other prominent writers. He savagely attacked playwright Thomas Shadwell in the poem MacFlecknoe, and attacked both Shadwell and Elkanah SettleElkanah Settle ( January 1, 1648 February 12, 1724), was an English poet and playwright. He was born at Dunstable, and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1666, but left without taking a degree. His first tragedy, Cambyses, King of Persia was produced at in part two of Absalom and AchitophelAbsalom and Achitophel is a landmark poetic political satire by John Dryden. The poem exists in two parts. The first part, of 1681, is undoubtedly by Dryden. The second part, of 1682, was written by another hand, most likely Nahum Tate. The poem is an all.

By 1663Events July 8 Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal Charter to Rhode Island. July 27 The British Parliament passes the second Navigation Act requiring that all goods bound for the American colonies have to be sent in English ships from English, the year he was made a fellow of the Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence and was founded in 1660. The Royal Irish Academy, founded in 1782, is also closely affiliated with it. The Royal Society of Edinburgh (founded 1783) is a separate S, he was prominent enough to be accepted as a suitable husband for Lady Elizabeth Howard, but his reputation was not really made until Annus Mirabilis, a celebration of the events of 1666Events September 2 Great Fire of London: A large fire breaks out in London in the house of Charles II's baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. The fire burns for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people. In 1668, he was appointed to succeed William DavenantSir William Davenant (February, 1606 April 7, 1668), also spelled D'Avenant was an English poet and playwright. Biography Sir William Davenant was born in late February, 1606 in Oxford, England, the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprie as Poet LaureatePoet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events. In the United Kingdom, it has over the centuries come to be the title of the official poet of the British mon, a post which he lost when King James IIJames II of England and VII of Scotland ( 14 October 1633 16 September 1701) became King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 6 February 1685. He would prove to be the last Catholic monarch to reign over England, Scotland or Ireland. His subjects distrus was deposed twenty years later. He continued to lead the way in Restoration comedy, his best known work being Marriage A-la-Mode, ( 1672). From the 1680s Dryden concentrated on poetry where his use of the rhymed couplet is considered brilliant, although he continued to write plays and composed several librettoes. In 1686 he converted to Catholicism. He also made some popular translations of Virgil's Aeneid and works by Horace, Ovid and Homer. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

His eldest son, Charles Dryden, became chamberlain to Pope Innocent XII.