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800
Beowulf
Beowulf, the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons -
1387
Canterbury Tales
Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death -
Tamburlaine the Great
Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama -
Richard III
After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III -
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10 -
Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift sends his hero on a series of bitterly satirical travels in Gulliver's Travels -
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published -
Mrs Dalloway
Virginia Woolf publishes her novel Mrs Dalloway, in which the action is limited to a single day
