The Short Oxford History of English Literature provides a
comprehensive and authoritative introductory guide to the literature of
the British Isles from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day,
including a full treatment of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh writing in
English. The chapters are arranged chronologically, covering all major
periods of English literature from Old English to the post-war era,
including the medieval period, the Renaissance, Shakespeare, the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Romanticism, the Victorians,
Modernism, and Postmodernism. In addition to a detailed discussion of
all major figures and their works, Andrew Sanders examines throughout
the relationship between the literary landscape and wider contemporary
social, political, and intellectual developments.
This edition contains a range of new entries on important contemporary
authors and an increased focus on female writers of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries as well as a fully updated and revised
bibliography.