Related content

• 18th century literature
• 2001 A Space Odyssey (novel)
• A Clockwork Orange
• A Modest Proposal
• A Room of One's Own
• A Tale of a Tub
• A. E. Housman
• Academia
• Adventure novel
• Aesthetics
• African American literature
• Agatha Christie
• Age of Enlightenment
• Agnes Grey
• Alan Moore
• Aldous Huxley
• Alessandro Volta
• Alex (A Clockwork Orange)
• Alexander Pope
• Alexander Selkirk
• Alfred Tennyson
• Alien invasion
• Allegory
• Alliterative verse
• Ambrose Philips
• American literature
• American Revolution
• Americans
• Amsterdam
• Anabaptists
• Ancient Rome
• And Then There Were None
• Anglo-Norman literature
• Anglo-Saxon England
• Anglo-Saxon literature
• Animal Farm
• Ann Radcliffe
• Anthony Burgess
• Anthony Hope
• Anthony Trollope
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Aphra Behn
• Archery
• Art
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Arthur Conan Doyle
• Arthurian literature
• Augustan literature
• Augustine of Canterbury
• Australian literature
• Baroque
• Beatrix Potter
• Beaumont and Fletcher
• Ben Jonson
• Beowulf
• Bible
• Biography
• Book of Common Prayer
• Bram Stoker
• Brave New World
• British literature
• Broadsheet
• Brontë sisters
• Burmese Days
• Byronic hero
• C. S. Lewis
• Caedmon's Hymn
• Canadian literature
• Caribbean literature
• Caricature
• Carmilla
• Casino Royale (novel)
• Celtic literature
• Chancery Standard
• Charles Dickens
• Charles I of England
• Charles II of England
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
• Children's literature
• Christian
• Christianity
• Christina Rossetti
• Christopher Marlowe
• Church of England
• City comedy
• Civil disobedience
• Civilisation
• Clarissa
• Classical conditioning
• Colley Cibber
• Colonialism
• Courtly love
• Cubism
• Cædmon
• D. H. Lawrence
• Daniel Defoe
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• Death on the Nile
• Detective fiction
• Devil
• Diggers
• Don Quixote
• Dorothy L. Sayers
• Douglas Adams
• Down and Out in Paris and London
• Dr. No (novel)
• Dr. Watson
• Dracula
• Drama
• Dublin
• Dubliners
• Dylan Thomas
• Dystopian
• E. M. Forster
• Early English Jewish literature
• Early Modern Britain
• Early Modern English
• Earth
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Edmund Spenser

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, and Vladimir Nabokov was Russian, but all are considered important writers in the history of English literature. In other words, English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world. In academia, the term often labels departments and programmes practising English studies in secondary and tertiary educational systems. Despite the variety of authors of English literature, the works of William Shakespeare remain paramount throughout the English-speaking world.

This article primarily deals with some of the literature from Britain written in English. For literature from specific English-speaking regions, consult the see also section, bottom of the page.