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The Venerable Bede, in his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people -
Beowulf, the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons
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The material of the Eddas, taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy
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Duns Scotus, known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce
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William of Ockham advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor
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Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death
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A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman
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Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy
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Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur
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Erasmus and Thomas More take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism
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The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer
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The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588
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English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene
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After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III
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Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age
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Shakespeare's last completed play, The Tempest, is performed
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Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler
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On the first day of the new year Samuel Pepys gets up late, eats the remains of the turkey and begins his diary
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Samuel Pepys ends his diary, after only writing it for nine years
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John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience
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Century divided in two
The Augustan: 1700-1750
Age of sensibility: 1750-1798 -
English author Jane Austen publishes her first work in print, Sense and Sensibility, at her own expense
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English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement
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William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton
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Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published
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Byron begins publication in parts of his longest poem, Don Juan an epic satirical comment on contemporary life
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English poet John Keats dies in Rome at the age of twenty-five
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12-year-old Charles Dickens works in London in Warren's boot-blacking factory
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24-year-old Charles Dickens begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837)
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Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838)
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Ebenezer Scrooge mends his ways just in time in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol
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Edward Lear publishes his Book of Nonsense, consisting of limericks illustrated with his own cartoons
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Charles Dickens begins the publication in monthly numbers of David Copperfield, his own favourite among his novels
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London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
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Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research
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Oxford mathematician Lewis Carroll tells 10-year-old Alice Liddell, on a boat trip, a story about her own adventures in Wonderland
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Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier
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Lewis Carroll publishes Through the Looking Glass, a second story of Alice's adventures
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English author Thomas Hardy has his first success with his novel Far from the Madding Crowd
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Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature
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Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z
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Robert Louis Stevenson introduces a dual personality in his novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
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Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly
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H.G. Wells publishes The Time Machine, a story about a Time Traveller whose first stop on his journey is the year 802701
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Oscar Wilde's most brilliant comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is performed in London's St. James Theatre
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H.G. Wells publishes his science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds, in which Martians arrive in a rocket to invade earth
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Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838)
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London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
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Charles Dickens publishes his French Revolution novel, A Tale of Two Cities
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Charles Dickens begins serial publication of his novel "Great Expectations" (in book form 1861)
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Beatrix Potter publishes at her own expense The Tale of Peter Rabbit
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E. Nesbit publishes The Railway Children, the most successful of her books featuring the Bastable family
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Rupert Brooke publishes Poems, the only collection to appear before his early death in World War I
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Ludwig Wittgenstein moves to Cambridge to study philosophy under Bertrand Russell
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The English writer Virginia Woolf publishes her first novel, The Voyage Out
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Ludwig Wittgenstein publishes his influential study of the philosophy of logic, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
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Richard Hughes publishes his first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica
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English author W.H. Auden's first collection of poetry is published with the simple title Poems
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Irish author Flann O'Brien publishes his first novel, At Swim-Two-Birds
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English author Nancy Mitford has her first success with the novel The Pursuit of Love
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J.M Barrie's play for children Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has its premiere in London
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Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is rejected by numerous publishers before becoming, decades later, his best-known novel
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English author Nancy Mitford has her first success with the novel The Pursuit of Love
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English author and alcoholic Malcolm Lowry publishes an autobiographical novel, Under the Volcano
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English author John Braine publishes his first novel, Room at the Top
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Penguin Books are prosecuted for obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, and are acquitted
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Roald Dahl publishes a fantasy treat for a starving child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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English novelist John Fowles publishes The French Lieutenant's Woman, set in Lyme Regis in the 1860s
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Peter Shaffer's play about Mozart, Amadeus, has its premiere in London
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A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
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Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen dramatizes the visit of Werner Heisenberg to Niels Bohr in wartime Denmark
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The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials
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C.S. Lewis gives the first glimpse of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe