British Literature Timeline

By Katie Kline
  • A History of the English Church and People
    Apr 29, 731

    A History of the English Church and People

    Bede writes about the history of the English church
  • Surviviing version of Beowulf composed
    May 2, 750

    Surviviing version of Beowulf composed

    C. 750
  • Surviving version of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight written
    May 2, 1375

    Surviving version of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight written

    c. 1375
  • The Canterbury Tales
    Apr 29, 1386

    The Canterbury Tales

    Geoffrey Chaucer begins to write The Canterbury Tales at this time.
  • Thomas Malory- Morte d'Arthur
    Apr 29, 1470

    Thomas Malory- Morte d'Arthur

    Morte d'Arthur is written by Sir Thomas Malory (c.1470)
  • Period: Apr 29, 1485 to

    English Renaissance Period

  • Thomas More publishes Utopia
    May 2, 1516

    Thomas More publishes Utopia

  • May 2, 1549

    The Book of Common Prayer is published

  • Sir Philip Sidney writes Astrophel and Stella
    May 2, 1582

    Sir Philip Sidney writes Astrophel and Stella

  • Shakespeare writes Romeo and Juliet

  • Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene is published

    Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene is published

  • Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum

    Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum

  • Period: to

    Seventeeth and Eighteenth Centuries

  • Sir Francis Bacon publishes The New Atlantis

    Sir Francis Bacon publishes The New Atlantis

  • John Donne's Songs and Sonnets published

  • John Milton publishes Lycidas

  • John Suckling publishes Fragmenta Aurea

  • Robert Herrick publishes Hesperides

  • Paradise Lost is published

    Paradise Lost is published

    John Milton's Paradise Lost
  • Sir Issac Newton publishes Principia

    Sir Issac Newton publishes Principia

  • Alexander Pope publishes The Rape of the Lock

    Alexander Pope publishes The Rape of the Lock

  • Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe

    Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe

  • Thomas Gray publishes "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

    Thomas Gray publishes "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

  • Samuel Johnson publishes Dictionary of the English Language

  • Period: to

    Romantic Period

  • William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads

  • Byron publishes Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

    Byron publishes Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

  • Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice

    Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice

  • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley publishes Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus

  • Percy Bysshe Shelley writes "Ode to the West Wind"

  • John Keats publishes "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

  • Period: to

    Victorian Period

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning publishes Sonnets from the Portuguese

  • Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

    Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

  • Robert Browning publishes The Ring and the Book

  • First Sherlock Holmes tale published

  • A. E. Housman publishes A Shropshire Lad

    A. E. Housman publishes A Shropshire Lad

  • Period: to

    Modern and Postmodern Periods

  • Joseph Conrad publishes Heart of Darkness

  • T.S. Eliot publishes The Waste Land

    T.S. Eliot publishes The Waste Land

  • James Joyce publishes Ulysses

  • George Orwell publishes Animal Farm

    George Orwell publishes Animal Farm

  • Period: to Apr 29, 1485

    Old English/Medieval Period

    The Beginning of the English language, mainly oral stories passed down.