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731
Monastery at Jarrow
The Venerable Bede, in his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people -
1385
TROILUS AND CRISEYDE
Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy, -
1469
KING ARTHUR
Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur -
1510
ERASMUS AND THOMAS MORE
Erasmus and Thomas More take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism -
1524
BIBLE INTO ENGLISH
William Tyndale studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English -
SHAKESPEARE
After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III -
HAMLET
Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age -
SONNETS
Shakespeare's sonnets, written ten years previously, are published -
PARADISELOST
Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10 -
THE PILGRIN´S PROGRESS
Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular -
CLARISSA
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa begins the correspondence that grows into the longest novel in the English language -
DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language -
THE RIGHTS OF MAN
Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France -
DICTIONARY OF SYNONYNS
London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases -
ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research -
ALICE´S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier -
NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY
Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z -
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Politician and author Winston Churchill completes his six-volume history The Second World War -
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
British philologist J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the third and final volume of his epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings -
AGENT 007
James Bond, agent 007, has a licence to kill in Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale -
AIDS
English poet Thom Gunn's The Man with Night Sweats deals openly with AIDS
