A Short History of English Literature

Thoroughly updated to include writers such as Caryl Churchill,Brian Friel, Martin Amis and Graham Swift, this book remains thebest overall survey of English literature available.

Robert Barnard looks selectively at the most important writerswithin each period from the time of Chaucer, and focuses on one ortwo of their works in detail. He deals briefly with the earlierperiods and more fully with the last two centuries, moving right tothe present with a detailed coverage of the post–war novel andtheatre. In the best sense eclectic, his book draws togetherhistory, criticism, established ideas and fresh views.

2. Sixteenth–Century Poetry and Prose.

3. The Beginnings of Drama.

4. Shakespeare.

5. Stuart Drama.

6. Poetry – Donne to Milton.

7. The Restoration.

8. The Eighteenth Century.

9. The Rise of the Novel.

10. The Birth of Romanticism.

11. Romantics and Anti–Romantics.

12. The Early Victorian Novelists.

13. The Early Victorian Poets.

14. The Late Victorians.

15. The Birth of Modern Poetry.

16. The Birth of the Modern Novel.

17. Depression and War.

18. Twentieth–Century Drama.

19. From the `Fifties to the Nineties′.

Index.