This book intends to give the students and readers a general knowledge of the development of British literature since Anglo-Saxon period to the present day and a critical examination of the representative works of major English literary men and women. I call this book A History of British Literature instead of English Literature because it includes the literature of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland as well as of England. It was in 1920 that Ireland became partitioned from the United Kingdom when the southern twenty-six counties seceded from the country.

The Anglo-Saxon Period 449-1066
Introduction
　The Venerable Bede and Caedmon
　King Alfred the Great
　Beowulf
　The Exeter Book
The Medieval Period 1066-1485
　Introduction
　Medieval Romance
　Folk Ballads
　John Wycliffe and William Langland
　Drama in the Middle Ages
　Geoffrey Chaucer
The Elizabethan Age 1485-1625
　Introduction
　Thomas More
　Sir Philip Sidney
　Edmund Spenser
　Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh
　Minor Playwrights
　William Shakespeare
　Francis Bacon
　King James Bible
The Seventeenth Century 1625-1700
　Introdution
　Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets
　John Donne and the Metaphysical Poets
　John Milton
　John Bunyan
　John Dryden
The Age of Neo-Classicism 1700-1764
　Introduction
　Alexander Pope
　Jonathan Swift
　Richard Steele and Joseph Addison
　Samuel Johnson and James Boswell
　The Novel of the Eighteenth Century
　Daniel Defoe
　Samuel Richardson
　Henry Fielding
　Tobias Smollett
　Laurence Sterne
　Oliver Goldsmith
Pre-Romantic Period 1764-1798
　Introduction
　Horace Walpole
　Ann Radcliffe
　Thomas Gray
　Robert Burns
　William Blake
The Romantic Age 1798-1837
　Introduction
　William Wordsworth
　Samuel Taylor Coleridge
George Gordon Lord Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Keats
William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb
Mary Shelley
Sir Walter Scott
Jane Austen
The Victorian Age 1837-1901
Introdution
Alfred Tennyson
Robert Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Charles Dickens
William Makepeace Thackeray
Matthew Arnold
The Bronte Sisters
Thomas Hardy
Oscar Wilde
The Modernist Age 1901-1945
Introdution
William Butler Yeats
T.S.Eliot
W.H.Auden
Joseph Conrad
James Joyce
The Postmodem Period 1945-Present
Introduction
Samuel Beckett
Harold Pinter
William Golding
Doris Lessing
Bibliography
Index