2500 BC Enuma Elish in oral tradition
Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story, spreads in oral form

1500 BC Sanskrit literature begins with Rigveda
Sacrificial hymns of the Aryans, gathered in the Rigveda, become the earliest Sanskrit literature

750 BC Homer is written down
The Homeric texts, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are written down - probably in Ionia

650 BC Full story of Gilgamesh
The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh is known in its complete form from texts in the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh

600 BC China's earliest poems
The poems of the Shi Jing, China's earliest work of literature, are gathered together

550 BC Confucius teaches practical philosophy
K'ung-fu-tzu, or Confucius, teaches a practical philosophy which will profoundly influence Chinese history

500 BC Parmenides puts the logic in philosophy
Parmenides is the first pure philosopher, using logic as a philosophical tool in his poem Nature

500 BC Chinese compare yin with yang
The Chinese philosophy of alternating opposites is expressed as yin and yang

484 BC Aeschylus wins drama prize
Aeschylus wins the prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in Athens

468 BC Sophocles wins drama prize
Sophocles wins the prize for tragedy in Athens, defeating Aeschylus in the competition

460 BC Herodotus father of history
Herodotus, the 'father of history', writes his account of the Greco-Persian Wars from a vantage point in Asia Minor

454 BC Euripides in drama contest
Euripides enters the drama contest at the City Dionysia in Athens for the first time

450 BC Sophists wander round Greece
The Sophists, professional philosophers, travel round Greece educating the sons of the rich

431 BC Thucydides writes up war
The renewal of the Peloponnesian War prompts Thucydides to begin a great work of contemporary history

425 BC Aristophanes the comedian
Aristophanes wins first prize in Athens for his comedy The Acharnians

423 BC Socrates satirized by Aristophanes
Socrates is now sufficiently prominent to be satirized in Clouds, a comedy by Aristophanes

401 BC Xenophon writes up long journey home
Greek mercenaries, on the losing side at Cunaxa, begin a long journey home - described by Xenophon in the Anabasis

400 BC Daodejing shows the way
Daodejing ('The Way and the Power') is the book of Daoism

399 BC Socrates drinks hemlock
Socrates, convicted in Athens of impiety, is sentenced to death and drinks the hemlock

387 BC Plato as schoolmaster in Athens
Plato establishes a school in Akademeia, a suburb of Athens

380 BC Plato's theory of forms
Central to Plato's philosophy is the theory that there are higher Forms of reality, of which our senses perceive only a transient shadow

367 BC Aristotle in Plato's school
Aristotle, at the age of seventeen, comes to Athens to join Plato's academy

350 BC Mahabharata assumes epic proportions
The Mahabharata, India's great national epic, begins to take shape

330 BC Aristotle's encyclopedic approach
Aristotle tackles wide-ranging subjects on a systematic basis, leaving to his successors an encyclopedia of contemporary thought

300 BC Ramayana tells romance of Rama
The Indian epic of romance and adventure, the Ramayana, is probably the work of a single author at about this time

185 BC Plautus and Terence copy Greeks
Plautus and Terence, in the second and third century BC, create a Roman drama based on Greek originals

160 BC Cato writes history of Rome
The Roman statesman Cato the Elder writes Origines ('Origins'), a history of Rome which survives only in fragments

120 BC Sima Qian and Chinese history
Sima Qian undertakes (and carries through against unusual odds) a major survey of Chinese history

81 BC Cicero speaks
Cicero, whose speeches become models of oratory, makes his first appearance in a Roman court

52 BC Caesar writes Gallic War
In his winter quarters Julius Caesar writes The Gallic War, an account of his own achievements in suppressing the Gauls

37 BC Virgil, poet of Italy
Virgil's reputation is established by his ten Eclogues, influenced by the Italian countryside in the region of his birth near Mantua

34 BC Maecenas buys farm for Horace
Maecenas buys a farm for Horace, in the Sabine hills near Tivoli - the most fruitful of his many acts of patronage

27 BC Livy writes history of Rome
Livy begins writing and publishing his History of Rome, a task which will occupy him for forty years

23 BC Odes from a Sabine farm
The first three books of Horace's Odes are published, written on his Sabine farm

20 BC Augustan Age
The excellence of the arts, particularly literature, during the reign of Augustus Caesar causes it to be remembered as a golden age of culture

20 BC Ovid publishes love poems
A collection of witty love poems, entitled Amores, brings Ovid an early success

19 BC Augustus saves Aeneid
Virgil dies just after completing the Aeneid, and imperial command from Augustus Caesar prevents his executor from destroying the epic

66 Josephus and the Jewish War
Josephus is in Jerusalem at the start of the rebellion against the Romans, and will later describe its suppression in his Jewish War

98 Tacitus on Britain and Germany
Tacitus begins his career with two specialized but influential works of history, one on Britain and the other on Germany

125 Suetonius and the Caesars
Suetonius, librarian to Trajan and personal secretary to Hadrian, is well placed to research his racy Lives of the Caesars

170 Marcus Aurelius meditates
Marcus Aurelius is rare among emperors in writing twelve books of philosophical Meditations

244 Plotinus moves to Rome
Plotinus, moving from Alexandria to Rome, teaches the influential philosophy later known as Neo-Platonism

380 Kalidasa at Gupta court
Kalidasa, the most distinguished of India's authors in classical Sanskrit, is at the Gupta court in Patna

413 Augustine emphasizes City of God
Prompted by the fall of Rome to the Visigoths, St Augustine undertakes a great work of Christian philosophy, the City of God

525 Monk selects AD 1
Dionysius Exiguus, commissioned by the pope to improve chronology, makes an error of at least four years in his selected event for AD 1

525 Boethius consoled by philosophy
Boethius, in prison in Pavia and awaiting execution, writes the Consolation of Philosophy

529 Philosophy schools closed in Athens
Justinian closes down the schools of Athens, famous for their tradition of pagan philosophy

591 Gregory writes history of Franks
Gregory, bishop of Tours, brings his 'History of the Franks' up to this year

600 Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry
The classic form of Arabic poetry, predating Islam, evolves as the qasidah

730 T'ang trio of poets
Three of China's most famous poets - Wang Wei, Li Po and Tu Fu - are contemporaries during the T'ang dynasty

731 Venerable Bede completes task
The Venerable Bede, in his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people

750 Germanic bards
The professional bards of the Germanic tribes give lasting life to Norse legend

778 Incident at Roncesvalles
An attack on Charlemagne's army, traditionally at the pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees, is later the basis for the Chanson de Roland

800 Beowulf
Beowulf, the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons

930 Saadiah's Book of Beliefs
Saadiah Gaon writes a seminal work of Jewish philosophy in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions

950 Eddas in Iceland
The material of the Eddas, taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy

1001 Tale of Genji
Japanese author Murasaki Shibubi produces, in The Tale of Genji, a book which can be considered the world's first novel

1010 Shah-nama of Firdausi
Firdausi completes his great chronicle of Persian history, the Shah-nama, which becomes established as Iran's national epic

1020 Avicenna in Isfahan
The Persian scholar Avicenna, author of encyclopedic works on philosophy and medicine, spends the last part of his life in Isfahan

1078 Anselm claims to prove that God exists
Anselm includes in his Proslogion his famous 'ontological proof' of the existence of God

1080 Omar Khayyámwrites quatrains
Omar Khayyám, mathematician and astronomer, writes four-line verses, or quatrains, in his spare time

1102 Chansons de geste
The chansons de geste, performed by professional minstrels in castles and manors, celebrate the exploits of Charlemagne and his paladins

1120 Troubadours and courtly love
The troubadours of Provence develop a new form of love poetry in French, introducing courtly love

1130 Chanson de Roland
A popular French poem, the Chanson de Roland, turns a minor disaster in one of Charlemagne's campaigns into a tale of epic heroism

1160 French authors make hero of Arthur
Chrétien de Troyes and other French authors turn the stories of Arthur and his knights into a romance of courtly love

1180 Nibelungenlied
The shared memories and legends of Nordic peoples are brought together in a great German epic, the Nibelungenlied

1180 Averroës in Cordoba
In Cordoba the Muslim philosopher Averroës writes commentaries on Aristotle that are influential throughout medieval Europe

1180 Maimonides in Cairo
In Cairo the Jewish philosoper Moses Maimonides writes, in Arabic, a much translated text with the endearing title Guide to the Perplexed

1205 Parsifal seeks Holy Grail
The story of Parsifal and the Holy Grail becomes the subject of a courtly epic by Wolfram von Eschenbach

1250 Tannhäuser among the Minnesinger
Tannhäuser is one of the Minnesinger, the German equivalents of the French troubadours

1257 Sa'di's Bustan
The Persian poet Sa'di publishes his Bustan ('Orchard'), a collection of moral tales in verse

1260 Sweet new style in Italy
A new form of poetry is written in northern Italy, described later by Dante as a sweet new style - the dolce stil nuovo

1266 Thomas Aquinas and scholasticism
Thomas Aquinas begins the outstanding work of medieval scholasticism, his Summa Theologiae

1300 Duns Scotus, genius or dunce
Duns Scotus, known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce

1307 Dante begins Divine Comedy
Dante, in exile from Florence, begins work on The Divine Comedy - completing it just before his death, 14 years later

1327 Petrarch sees Laura in church
Petrarch glimpses Laura in a church in Avignon and falls helplessly in love with her - or so he tells us

1340 Ockham's Razor
William of Ockham advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor

1341 Petrarch as poet laureate in Rome
A laurel wreath is placed on the brow of Petrarch in Rome, in a renewal of interest in the classical world

1350 Humanism a central theme of Renaissance
Humanism, or the study of classical literature as a living tradition, develops into one of the main strands of the Renaissance

1367 Will is possibly Langland
A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman

1367 Chaucer serves in palace
One of four new yeomen of the chamber in Edward III's household is Geoffrey Chaucer

1370 Hafiz and the ghazal
The Persian poet Hafiz perfects a form of short poem, the ghazal, dwelling on the pleasures of life with an undercurrent of Sufi mysticism

1375 Green knight issues challenge
The courtly poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur

1385 Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde
Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy

1387 Chaucer begins Canterbury Tales
Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death

1461 Villon remembers ladies of time past
Francois Villon, recently released from prison, writes his Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past

1462 Platonic Academy in Florence
In keeping with his personal interest in Plato, Cosimo de' Medici founds a Platonic Academy in Florence

1469 Malory in gaol writes about Arthur
Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur

1487 Roland in love
Boiardo publishes a romantic epic, Orlando Innamorato, about Roland's love for a bewitching princess

1510 Erasmus and Christian humanism
Erasmus and Thomas More take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism

1516 Orlando mad says Ariosto
Ariosto, in Orlando Furioso, tells of Roland's madness when he is abandoned by the pagan princess Angelica

1524 Tyndale at Wittenberg
William Tyndale studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English

1549 First English prayer book
The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer

1550 Ronsard's Odes
Pierre de Ronsard publishes the first four books of his Odes

1564 Marlowe and Shakespeare born
Marlowe and Shakespeare are born in the same year, with Marlowe the older by two months

1567 New Testament in Welsh
The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588

1572 Camoëns and The Lusiads
Luis de Camoëns publishes The Lusiads, the poem which becomes Portugal's national epic

1581 Tasso finds romance in first crusade
Tasso, in Gerusalemme Liberata ('Jerusalem Liberated'), turns the first crusade into a romantic epic

1582 Shakespeare marries Anne
The 18-year-old William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway in Stratford-upon-Avon

1587 Marlowe pioneers blank verse
Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama

1590 Spenser flatters Fairy Queen
English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene

1592 Shakespeare shows his paces with Richard III
After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III

1595 Europe hears news of Confucius
The writings of Matteo Ricci introduce Kung Fu Tzu to Europe under a Latin version of his name - Confucius

1601 Hamlet catches spirit of age
Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age

1604 Authorized version commissioned
James I commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years

1604 Shakespeare listed as actor
William Shakespeare's name appears among the actors in a list of the King's Men

1605 Masque at court of James I
Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I

1605 Don Quixote
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes publishes the first part of his satirically romantic novel Don Quixote

1606 Ben Jonson's Volpone
The satirical voice of the English playwright Ben Jonson is heard to powerful effect in Volpone

1609 Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets, written ten years previously, are published

1611 The Tempest
Shakespeare's last completed play, The Tempest, is performed

1616 John Smith describes New England
John Smith publishes A Description of New England, an account of his exploration of the region in 1614

1616 Shakespeare dies
William Shakespeare dies at New Place, his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and is buried in Holy Trinity Church

1620 History of Plimmoth Plantation
William Bradford begins a journal of the Pilgrims' experience in New England, subsequently published (in 1856) as History of Plymouth Plantation

1621 Donne is dean
John Donne, England's leading Metaphysical poet, becomes dean of St Paul's

1623 First Folio
John Heminge and Henry Condell publish thirty-six Shakespeare plays in the First Folio

1633 Herbert's posthumous poems
George Herbert's only volume of poems, The Temple, is published posthumously

1637 Corneille's Le Cid
Pierre Corneille's play Le Cid, popular with Paris audiences, hinges on the conflict between duty and love

1637 Milton's Lycidas
John Milton's Lycidas is published in memory of a Cambridge friend, Edward King

1644 Descartes thinks so he is
In his Principles of Philosophy Descartes gives priority to reason, summed up in his famous phrase cogito ergo sum

1650 Anne Bradstreet is published in London
The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America

1653 The Compleat Angler
Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler

1660 Pepys begins a diary
On the first day of the new year Samuel Pepys gets up late, eats the remains of the turkey and begins his diary

1667 Racine's Andromaque
French dramatist Jean Racine's first great success, Andromaque, finds tragic drama in a quadrangle of love

1667 £10 for Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10

1669 Pepys ends his diary
Samuel Pepys ends his diary, after only writing it for nine years

1673 Molière no malade imaginaire
Molière falls fatally ill when acting in his own play Le Malade Imaginaire

1674 Sewall begins his diary
Samuel Sewall begins a diary of daily life in Boston, Massachusetts, that will span a period of more than fifty years

1677 Spinoza's Ethics
Baruch Spinoza's Ethics, dealing with God, the mind and the emotions, is published shortly after his death

1678 Ex-prisoner scores with Pilgrim's Progress
Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular

1680 Bunyan and Mr Badman
John Bunyan publishes The Life and Death of Mr Badman, an allegory of a misspent life that is akin to a novel

1688 Aphra Behn attacks slave trade
Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko makes an early protest against the inhumanity of the African slave trade

1690 Locke on human understanding
John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience

1700 The Selling of Joseph
Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract

1702 Augustan Age in England
The Augustan Age begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the equivalent flowering under Augustus Caesar

1709 Tatler with your coffee
The Tatler launches a new style of journalism in Britain's coffee houses, followed two years later by the Spectator

1710 Berkeley attacks Locke
25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

1712 Pope reveals rape of lock
Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry

1714 Leibniz discusses monads
In his Monadology Leibniz describes a universe consisting of forceful interactive parts that he calls 'monads'

1719 Crusoe meets Man Friday
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel

1722 Benjamin Franklin's 'Dogood Papers'
16-year-old Benjamin Franklin contributes the 'Dogood Papers', essays on moral topics, to a Boston journal, The New England Courant

1726 Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels

1739 Hume ponders human nature
David Hume publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science

1740 Goldoni a hit in Venice
Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni makes a success of plays in the ancient commedia dell'arte tradition

1747 Clarissa a keen letter-writer
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa begins the correspondence which grows into the longest novel in the English language

1749 Tom Jones loves Sophia Western
Henry Fielding introduces a character of lasting appeal in the lusty but good-hearted Tom Jones

1751 Gray's Elegy
English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy written in a Country Church Yard

1755 Johnson defines English
Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language

1758 Woodforde begins a diary
James Woodforde, an English country parson with a love of food and wine, begins a detailed diary of everyday life

1759 Candide hopes for the best
Voltaire publishes Candide, a satire on optimism prompted by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755

1759 Tristram Shandy conceived
Laurence Sterne publishes the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, beginning with the scene at the hero's conception

1762 Calls for Rousseau's arrest
Two books in this year, Émile and Du Contrat Social, prompt orders for the arrest of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1762 Fingal a forgery
Fingal, supposedly by the medieval Celtic poet Ossian, has a huge and fashionable success but is revealed to be a forgery by James Macpherson

1763 Boswell meets Johnson
James Boswell meets Samuel Johnson for the first time, in the London bookshop of Thomas Davies

1764 Gibbon gets idea in Rome
English historian Edward Gibbon, sitting among ruins in Rome, conceives the idea of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1764 Castle of Otranto
English author Horace Walpole provides an early taste of Gothic thrills in his novel Castle of Otranto

1766 Vicar of Wakefield
Irish novelist Oliver Goldsmith publishes The Vicar of Wakefield, with a hero who has much to complain about but keeps calm

1768 Encyclopaedia Britannica
A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful Encyclopaedia Britannica

1770 Boy poet's suicide
17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, later hailed as a significant poet, commits suicide in a London garret

1773 She Stoops to Conquer
Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer is produced in London's Covent Garden theatre

1773 Johnson and Boswell on tour
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell undertake a journey together to the western islands of Scotland

1774 Goethe wins with weepy novel
Goethe's romantic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, brings him an immediate European reputation

1774 Storm and stress
Goethe's play Götz von Berlichingen, a definitive work of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress), has its premiere in Berlin

1774 Paine moves to America
Encouraged by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine emigrates to America and settles in Philadelphia

1775 Figaro here to stay
Figaro makes his first appearance on stage in Beaumarchais' The Barber of Seville

1776 Paine argues for Common Sense
In Common Sense, an anonymous pamphlet, English immigrant Thomas Paine is the first to argue that the American colonies should be independent

1776 Gibbon's Decline and Fall
English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1776 Adam Smith on wealth of nations
Scottish economist Adam Smith analyzes the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations

1777 School for Scandal
Richard Brinsley Sheridan's second play, The School for Scandal, is an immediate success in London's Drury Lane theatre

1778 The Battle of the Kegs
Francis Hopkinson's popular ballad The Battle of the Kegs describes an ingenious American threat to the British navy

1781 The British Prison Ship
US poet Philip Freneau describes in The British Prison Ship the horrors of his experiences as a prisoner

1781 Kant on pure reason
German philosopher Immanuel Kant publishes the first of his three 'critiques', The Critique of Pure Reason

1782 Schiller sensation
Friedrich von Schiller's youthful and anarchic play The Robbers causes a sensation when performed in Mannheim

1783 Webster's Spelling Book
US lexicographer Noah Webster publishes a Spelling Book for American children that eventually will sell more than 60 million copies

1786 Philip Freneau's Poems
US author Philip Freneau publishes his first collection of poems, dating back to 1771

1789 Blake sings of innocence
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself

1789 Bentham expounds utilitarianism
In his Principles Jeremy Bentham defines 'utility' as that which enhances pleasure and reduces pain

1789 Olaudah Equiano
The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave captured as a child in Africa, becomes a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic

1789 Dunlap's The Father
US painter and author William Dunlap has great success with his comedy The Father; or, American Shandyism

1790 Burke reflects on French Revolution
Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel

1791 Tam o' Shanter
Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam o' Shanter, in which a drunken farmer has an alarming encounter with witches

1791 Paine's Rights of Man
Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

1792 Wollstonecraft insists on women's rights
English author Mary Wollstonecraft publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

1792 Paine moves to France
Thomas Paine moves hurriedly to France, to escape a charge of treason in England for opinions expressed in his Rights of Man

1794 Goethe and Schiller in Weimar
Goethe and Schiller become friends, and together create the movement known as Weimar classicism

1794 Fichte analyzes knowledge
In his Science of Knowledge Johann Gottlieb Fichte contrasts the I, or Ego, and its opposing non-I, or non-Ego

1794 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright'
William Blake's volume Songs of Innocence and Experience includes his poem 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright'

1795 Paine's The Age of Reason
Thomas Paine publishes his completed Age of Reason, an attack on conventional Christianity

1796 The Hasty Pudding
US author Joel Barlow publishes his mock-heroic poem The Hasty Pudding, inspired by a dish eaten in 1793 in France

1797 Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that while writing Kubla Khan he is interrupted by 'a person on business from Porlock'

1798 Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland
US author Charles Brockden Brown publishes Wieland, the first of four novels setting Gothic romance in an American context

1798 Lyrical Ballads
English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement

1798 Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is published in Lyrical Ballads

1800 Library of Congress
The Library of Congress, the US national library in all but name, is founded in Washington

1804 Blake's 'Jerusalem'
William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton

1805 Lay of the Last Minstrel
Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first brings him fame

1807 Hegel charts development of mind
In Phenomenology of Spirit Friedrich Hegel interprets history as the advance of the human mind, often through thesis, antithesis and synthesis

1809 Irving hides behind Knickerbocker
Washington Irving uses the fictional Dutch scholar Diedrich Knickerbocker as the supposed author of his comic History of New York

1810 Lady of the Lake
Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine

1811 Atheist Shelley expelled from Oxford
Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from Oxford university for circulating a pamphlet with the title The Necessity of Atheism

1811 Sense and Sensibility
English author Jane Austen publishes her first work in print, Sense and Sensibility, at her own expense

1812 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
The first two cantos are published of Byron's largely autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bringing him immediate fame

1813 Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published

1814 The Star-Spangled Banner
US lawyer Francis Scott Key writes The Star-Spangled Banner after seeing the British bombard Fort McHenry

1817 Bryant's Thanatopsis
US poet William Cullen Bryant publishes Thanatopsis, written seven years previously at the age of 16

1818 Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias

1818 Schopenhauer is pessimistic
In The World as Will and Idea Schopenhauer develops the bleakest possible view of the effects of the human will

1818 Jane Austen published posthumously
Two of Jane Austen's novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, are published in the year after her death

1818 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about giving life to an artificial man

1819 November 22 George Eliot is born
Mary Anne Evans (known now as George Eliot) is born in the parish of Chilvers Coton in Warwickshire

1819 Paine's bones return to England
William Cobbett brings back to England the bones of Thomas Paine, who died in the USA in 1809

1819 Byron's Don Juan
Byron begins publication in parts of his longest poem, Don Juan an epic satirical comment on contemporary life

1819 Ivanhoe
Walter Scott publishes Ivanhoe, a tale of love, tournaments and sieges at the time of the crusades

1820 Rip Van Winkle wakes up
Washington Irving tells the story of the long sleep of Rip Van Winkle in his Sketch Book

1820 Ode to a Nightingale
English poet John Keats publishes Ode to a Nightingale, inspired by the bird's song in his Hampstead garden

1820 Ode to the West Wind
English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Ode to the West Wind, written mainly in a wood near Florence

1820 Longfellow's first published poem
7-year-old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a poem published in a newspaper in his home town of Portland, Maine

1820 Ruslan and Ludmilla
Russian poet Alexander Pushkin publishes his first long poem, Ruslan and Ludmilla

1821 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
English author Thomas De Quincey publishes his autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

1821 Death of Keats
English poet John Keats dies in Rome at the age of twenty-five

1821 Cobbett begins his rural rides
English radical William Cobbett begins his journeys round England, published in 1830 as Rural Rides

1821 Fenimore Cooper's The Spy
The Spy, a romance set in the American Revolution, establishes the reputation of US author James Fenimore Cooper

1821 Hazlitt's Table Talk
English author William Hazlitt publishes Table Talk, a two-volume collection that includes most of his best-known essays

1821 Cherokee language written down
The spoken language of the Cherokee Indians is captured in written form – an achievement traditionally attributed to Sequoyah

1823 First of the Leather-Stocking Tales
James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers introduces Natty Bumppo, frontiersman known for his 'leather stockings'

1823 A Visit from St Nicholas
An American poem, A Visit from St Nicholas, describes in every detail the modern Santa Claus

1824 Dickens blacks boots
12-year-old Charles Dickens works in London in Warren's boot-blacking factory

1825 Manzoni publishes I Promessi Sposi
Italian author Alessandro Manzoni begins publication (completed 1827) of his novel I Promessi Sposi ('The Betrothed')

1826 The Last of the Mohicans
In James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, Natty Bumppo sides with a Mohican chief

1828 Webster's Dictionary
Connecticut lexicographer Noah Webster publishes the definitive 2-volume scholarly edition of his American Dictionary of the English Language

1829 Poe's Al Aaraaf
20-year-old Edgar Allan Poe publishes Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems

1830 Hernani
Victor Hugo's romantic drama Hernani provokes a riot in the Paris audience on the first night

1830 Old Ironsides saved by a poem
Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem 'Old Ironsides' prompts a public response that saves the frigate from the scrapyard

1830 Le Rouge et Le Noir
French author Stendhal publishes his novel Le Rouge et Le Noir ('The Red and the Black')