本书以历史进程为顺序，以文学体裁的演化为框架，详细地介绍了英国文学的基本知识。内容包括：中世纪英国文学、文艺复兴时期英国文学、浪漫主义文学、二十世纪文学等。本书结构体系清楚，材料繁简适中，叙述条理明晰。本书可作为高等院校外语专业的基础教材，也可供喜爱英国文学的广大读者参考使用。本书为英文版。

In this book, the British literature is structured into seven literary periods. Chronologically, each period is introduced firstly by a brief comment on its social, political, cultural and ideological conditions. Secondly the book summarizes the prevailing literary trends and schools of the time, emphasizing the lives and literary careers of the great and major writers. Thirdly, a study and analysis of every author's best works is highlighted, hoping to cultivate the literary qualities of the readers. Aiming at raising reader's interest in English writers and their works, the pictorial illustrations of the target writers are also provided in the book.

As a general manual of English literature, this book can be used as a textbook in British literature forming part of the curricula of the Foreign Language Departments of Colleges and Universities in China. It is also intended for students, teachers of English literature, postgraduates and all those who are interested in the English literature and culture.

Chapter 1 Old and Medieval English Literature

 1.1 The Anglo-Saxon Period

1.1.1 The Baekground 

1.1.2 Old English Literature

 1.2 The Norman Conquest

1.2.1 The Background

1.2.2 Medieval English Literature

 1.3 Geoffrey Chaucer

Chapter 2 The Renaissance

 2.1 The Renaissance in Europe

 2.2 Humanism and Humanists

 2.3 The Background of English Renaissance

 2.4 The Renaissance English Writers

2.4.1 William Shakespeare

2.4.2 Francis Bacon

Chapter 3 The Period of English Bourgeois Revolution and Restoration 

 3.1 Historical Background

 3.2 Literary Features and Writers

3.2.1 John Milton

3.2.2 John Bunyan

Chapter 4 The Enlightenment Period

 4.1 Historical Background

 4.2 Literary Features and Writers

4.2.1 Daniel Defoe

4.2.2 Jonathan Swift

4.2.3 Henry Fielding

4.2.4 William Blake

4.2.5 Robert Bums

Chapter 5 The Period of Romanticism

 5.1 Historical Background

 5.2 Literary Features and Writers

5.2.1 William Wordsworth

5.2.2 George Gordon Byron

5.2.3 Percy Bysshe Shelley

5.2.4 John Keats

5.2.5 Jane Austen

Chapter 6 The Victorian Period

 6 1 Historical Background

 6.2 Literary Trends and Writers

6.2.1 Charles Dickens

6.2.2 William Makepeace Thackeray

6.2.3 The Bronte Sisters

6.2.4 The Brownings

Chapter 7 Twentieth Century Literature

 7.1 Historical Background

 7.2 Cultural Background

 7.3 Literary Trends and Writers

7.3.1 Thomas Hardy

7.3.2 John Galsworthy

7.3.3 George Bernard Shaw

7.3.4 D.H.Lawrence

7.3.5 Virginia Woolf

7.3.6 James Joyce

References