-
731
The Venerable Bede (673 - 735)
In his monastery at Jarrow, completes his historyof the English church and people -
800
Beowulf
The first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experiencein England of Angles and Saxons -
950
The material of the Eddas
Taking shappe of Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy. -
1300
Dunns Scotus (1265 - 1308)
Knows as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce -
1340
William of Ockham
Advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's razor -
1367
William Langland
A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman -
1375
Britain
The courtly poem Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur -
1385
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 - 1400)
Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient troy. -
1387
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 - 1400)
Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death. -
1469
Thomas Mallory (1416 - 1471)
In gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur - an English account of the French tales of King Arthur -
1510
Erasmus and Thomas More
Take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Cristian humanism -
1524
William Tyndale (1494 - 1536)
Plans to translate the Bible into english -
1549
Thomas Cranmer (1489 - 1556)
The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer -
1564
England
Marlowe and Shakespeare are born in the same year, with Marlowe the older by two months -
Cristopher Marlowe
Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama -
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age. -
England
James I commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years -
Ben Jonson (1572 - 1673)
Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I. -
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Shakespeare's last completed play, The Tempest, is performed -
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
William Shakespeare dies at New Place, his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and is buried in Holy Trinity Church -
John Heminge and Henry Condell
They publish thirty-six Shakespeare plays in the First Folio -
Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)
The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America -
Izaak Walton (1593 - 1683)
Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler. -
John Milton (1608 - 1674)
Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10 -
John Bunyan (1628 - 1688)
Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular -
Aphra Behn (1640 - 1689)
Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko makes an early protest against the inhumanity of the African slave trade -
John Locke (1632 - 1704)
John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience -
George Berkeley (1685 - 1753)
25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge -
Daniel Defoe (1660 - 1731)
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel -
Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)
Sends his hero on a series of bitterly satirical travels in Gulliver's Travels -
Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771)
English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy written in a Country Church Yard. -
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language -
Laurence Sterne (1713 - 1768)
Laurence Sterne publishes the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, beginning with the scene at the hero's conception -
Scotland
A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful Encyclopaedia Britannica -
Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794)
English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire -
William Blake (1757 - 1827)
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself -
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)
Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel -
Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)
Thomas Paine publishes his completed Age of Reason, an attack on conventional Christianity. -
Walter Scott (1771 - 1832)
Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first brings him fame -
Walter Scott (1771 - 1832)
Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine -
Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)
Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published -
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias -
Mary Shelley (1797 - 1851)
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about giving life to an artificial man -
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)
24-year-old Charles Dickens begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837) -
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)
Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838) -
Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)
English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin -
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)
Ebenezer Scrooge mends his ways just in time in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol -
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
In his novel Coningsby Benjamin Disraeli develops the theme of Conservatism uniting 'two nations', the rich and the poor -
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 - 1863)
English author William Makepeace Thackeray begins publication of his novel Vanity Fair in monthly parts (book form 1848) -
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)
Charles Dickens begins the publication in monthly numbers of David Copperfield, his own favourite among his novels -
Peter Mark Roget (1779 - 1869)
London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases -
Edward FitzGerald (1809 - 1883)
Edward FitzGerald publishes The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, romantic translations of the work of the Persian poet -
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research -
George Eliot (1819 - 1880)
English author George Eliot wins fame with her first full-length novel, Adam Bede -
Alfred Tennyson (1809 - 1892)
Tennyson publishes the first part of Idylls of the King, a series of linked poems about Britain's mythical king Arthur -
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)
Charles Dickens publishes his French Revolution novel, A Tale of Two Cities -
Ellen Wood (Mrs. Henry Wood) (1814 - 1887)
Mrs Henry Wood publishes her first novel, East Lynne, which becomes the basis of the most popular of all Victorian melodramas -
Charles Kingsley (1819 - 1875)
English author Charles Kingsley publishes an improving fantasy for young children, The Water-Babies -
Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier -
Algernon Swinburne (1837 - 1909)
Algernon Swinburne scandalizes Victorian Britain with his first collection, Poems and Ballads -
Karl Marx (1818 - 1883)
The first volume of Das Kapital is completed by Marx in London and is published in Hamburg -
Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888)
English author Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy, an influential collection of essays about contemporary society -
Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)
Lewis Carroll publishes Through the Looking Glass, a second story of Alice's adventures -
William Gladstone (1809 - 1898)
William Gladstone's pamphlet Bulgarian Horrors, protesting at massacre by the Turks, sells 200,000 copies within a month -
Britain
The Aesthetic Movement and 'art for art's sake', attitudes personified above all by Whistler and Wilde, are widely mocked and satirized in Britain -
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)
Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story, Treasure Island, features Long John Silver and Ben Gunn -
Britain
Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z -
Richard Burton (1821 - 1890)
Explorer and orientalist Richard Burton begins publication of his multi-volume translation from the Arabic of The Arabian Nights -
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)
Robert Louis Stevenson introduces a dual personality in his novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde -
Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
Thomas Hardy publishes his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, which begins with the future mayor, Michael Henchard selling his wife and child at a fair -
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930)
Sherlock Holmes features in Conan Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet -
Sir James Frazer (1854 - 1941)
Scottish anthropologist James Frazer publishes The Golden Bough, a massive compilation of contemporary knowledge about ritual and religious custom -
Rudyad Kipling (1865 - 1936)
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book surrounds the child Mowgli with a collection of vivid animal guardians -
Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946)
H.G. Wells publishes The Time Machine, a story about a Time Traveller whose first stop on his journey is the year 802701 -
Bram Stoker (1847 - 1912)
English author Bram Stoker publishes Dracula, his gothic tale of vampirism in Transylvania -
Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946)
H.G. Wells publishes his science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds, in which Martians arrive in a rocket to invade earth -
Edith Nesbit (1858 - 1924)
E. Nesbit publishes The Story of the Treasure Seekers, introducing the Bastable family who feature in several of her books for children -
Beatrix Potter (1866 - 1943)
Beatrix Potter publishes at her own expense The Tale of Peter Rabbit -
Beatrix Potter (1866 - 1943)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is published commercially, a year after being first printed by Beatrix Potter at her own expense -
Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924)
Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Nostromo, about a revolution in South America and a fatal horde of silver -
James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937)
J.M Barrie's play for children Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has its premiere in London -
Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946)
The heroine of H.G. Wells' novel Ann Veronica is a determined example of the New Woman -
Great Britain
The Times Literary Supplement is published in London as an independent paper, separate from The Times -
Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)
In The Economic Consequences of the Peace Maynard Keynes publishes a strong attack on the reparations demanded from Germany -
Alan Alexander Minle (1882 - 1956)
Christopher Robin features for the first time in A.A. Milne's When We Were Very Young. -
Alan Alexander Minle (1882 - 1956)
Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and the others make their first appearance in A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. -
Arthur Ransome (1884 - 1967)
Swallows and Amazons is the first of Arthur Ransome's adventure stories for children -
Archibald MacLeish (1892 - 1982)
US poet Archibald MacLeish publishes a narrative epic, Conquistador, about the conquest of Mexico -
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) (1903 - 1950)
In Down and Out in Paris and London English author George Orwell writes a sympathetic account of the people he meets on hard times -
Allen Lane (1902 - 1970)
British publisher Allen Lane launches a paperback series to which he gives the name Penguin Books -
Evelyn Waugh (1903 - 1966)
British author Evelyn Waugh publishes a classic Fleet Street novel, Scoop, introducing Lord Copper, proprietor of The Beast -
Rebecca West (1892 - 1983)
British author Rebecca West publishes an account of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. -
Ian Fleming (1908 - 1964)
James Bond, agent 007, has a licence to kill in Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale. -
Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
Politician and author Winston Churchill completes his six-volume history The Second World War -
William Golding (1939 - 1993)
William Golding gives a chilling account of schoolboy savagery in his first novel, Lord of the Flies -
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892 - 1973)
British philologist J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the third and final volume of his epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings -
Roald Dahl (1916 - 1990)
British author Roald Dahl publishes a novel for children, James and the Giant Peach -
Anthony Burgess (1917 - 1993)
Anthony Burgess publishes A Clockwork Orange, a novel depicting a disturbing and violent near-future. -
Roald Dahl (1916 - 1990)
Roald Dahl publishes a fantasy treat for a starving child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. -
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902 - 1983)
German-born British art historian Nikolaus Pevsner completes his monumental 46-volume Buildings of England -
Stephen Hawking (1942 - 2018)
British physicist Stephen Hawking explains the cosmos for the general reader in A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes. -
Joanne Rowling (1965 - )
A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
