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The Venerable Bede, in his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people.
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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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Duns Scotus, known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce
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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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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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Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry
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William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton
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The Aesthetic Movement and 'art for art's sake', attitudes personified above all by Whistler and Wilde, are widely mocked and satirized in Britain
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Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Lord Jim about a life of failure and redemption in the far East
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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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The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials
