From Chaucer to Tennyson

About the book

Henry A. Beers organizes a broad literary history into a short chronological course, beginning with the background to Chaucer and moving through Shakespeare, Milton, the eighteenth century, Romantic writers, and the nineteenth century. His preface makes the limits explicit: the emphasis is on imaginative literature, with philosophy, science, and historical writing receiving only incidental attention, and Anglo-Saxon literature omitted from the main account. Each chapter is accompanied by suggested reading, while an appendix supplies selections from authors. The result reflects the practical aims of an educational survey as well as the literary judgments of its period. Readers can follow changes in genre and style while noticing how a compact canon is built through choices of inclusion and omission.

• Literary development
• Education and selection
• Historical criticism

Why read it

Compare a concise historical map of English literature with the actual works it recommends and excerpts.

English literary survey by Henry A. Beers, with author selections