-
In his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people
-
The first great work of Germanic Literature, mingles the legends of scandinavia with the experience in England and Saxon.
-
The history happened in Iceland with sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy.
-
Known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce
-
Advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor
-
Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy
-
William Tyndale studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English
-
The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588
-
After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III
-
The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
-
Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular
-
John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience
-
25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
-
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English nove
-
A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful Encyclopaedia Britannica
-
English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
-
English author Mary Wollstonecraft publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
-
Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published
-
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about giving life to an artificial man
-
24-year-old Charles Dickens begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837)
-
Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research
-
Explorer and orientalist Richard Burton begins publication of his multi-volume translation from the Arabic of The Arabian Nights
-
Robert Louis Stevenson introduces a dual personality in his novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
-
Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly
-
English author Bram Stoker publishes Dracula, his gothic tale of vampirism in Transylvania
-
H.G. Wells publishes his science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds, in which Martians arrive in a rocket to invade earth
-
The English writer Virginia Woolf publishes her first novel, The Voyage Out
-
George Orwell reveals the harsh realities of contemporary British life in The Road to Wigan Pier
-
Politician and author Winston Churchill completes his six-volume history The Second World War
-
Anthony Burgess publishes A Clockwork Orange, a novel depicting a disturbing and violent near-future
-
Iris Murdoch publishes The Sea, the Sea, and wins the 1978 Booker Prize
-
British physicist Stephen Hawking explains the cosmos for the general reader in A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes
-
Scottish author Irvine Welsh publishes his first novel, Trainspotting
-
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
-
The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials
