Responding to major shifts in literary studies over the past thirty
years, The Longman Anthology of British LIterature was the first
collection to pay sustained attention to the contexts within which
literature is produced, even as it broadened the scope of that
literature to embrace the full cultural diversity of the British Isles.
Within its pages, canonical authors mingle with newly visible writers;
English accents are heard next to Anglo-Norman, Welsh, Gaelic, and
Scottish ones; female and male voices are set in dialogue; literature
from the British Isles is integrated with post-colonial writing; and
major works are illumined by clusters of shorter texts that bring
literary, social, and historical issues vividly to life. Volume 2B
focuses on the literature of the Victorian Age.