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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 £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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 '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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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 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

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

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

1832 Domestic Manners of the Americans
English author Frances Trollope ruffles transatlantic feathers with her Domestic Manners of the Americans, based on a 3-year stay

1836 Pickwick Papers
24-year-old Charles Dickens begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837)

1837 Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838)

1842 Pied Piper of Hamelin
English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin

1842 Lays of Ancient Rome
English author Thomas Babington Macaulay publishes a collection of stirring ballads, Lays of Ancient Rome

1843 A Christmas Carol
Ebenezer Scrooge mends his ways just in time in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

1844 Disraeli develops one-nation Conservatism
In his novel Coningsby Benjamin Disraeli develops the theme of Conservatism uniting 'two nations', the rich and the poor

1845 Engels describes working class life in Manchester
Friedrich Engels, after running a textile factory in Manchester, publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England

1846 Lear's Book of Nonsense
Edward Lear publishes his Book of Nonsense, consisting of limericks illustrated with his own cartoons

1846 Browning marries Elizabeth Barrett
After marrying secretly, the English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett go abroad to live in Florence

1846 Bronte sisters publish poems
The three Brontë sisters jointly publish a volume of their poems and sell just two copies

1847 Thackeray's Vanity Fair
English author William Makepeace Thackeray begins publication of his novel Vanity Fair in monthly parts (book form 1848)

1847 Jane Eyre
Charlotte becomes the first of the Brontë sisters to have a novel published — Jane Eyre

1847 Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights follows just two months after her sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre

1848 Three Brontë deaths in eight months
Branwell, Emily and Anne Brontë die within a period of eight months

1849 David Copperfield
Charles Dickens begins the publication in monthly numbers of David Copperfield, his own favourite among his novels

1850 In Memoriam
Alfred Tennyson's elegy for a friend, In Memoriam, captures perfectly the Victorian mood of heightened sensibility

1852 Roget's Thesaurus
London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

1854 Charge of the Light Brigade
Within six weeks of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea, Tennyson publishes a poem finding heroism in the disaster

1855 Tennyson's Maud
Tennyson publishes a long narrative poem, Maud, a section of which ('Come into the garden, Maud') becomes famous as a song

1855 Trollope begins the Barchester series
English author Anthony Trollope publishes The Warden, the first in his series of six Barsetshire novels

1857 Tom Brown begins his schooldays
In Tom Brown's Schooldays Thomas Hughes depicts the often brutal aspects of an English public school

1859 February Adam Bede
English author George Eliot wins fame with her first full-length novel, Adam Bede

1859 On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of twenty years' research

1859 John Stuart Mill On Liberty
In On Liberty John Stuart Mill makes the classic liberal case for the priority of the freedom of the individual

1859 Samuel Smiles' Self-Help
Samuel Smiles provides an inspiring ideal of Victorian enterprise in Self-Help, a manual for ambitious young men

1859 Tennyson's Idylls of the King
Tennyson publishes the first part of Idylls of the King, a series of linked poems about Britain's mythical king Arthur

1859 Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens publishes his French Revolution novel, A Tale of Two Cities

1859 Omar Khayyám
Edward FitzGerald publishes The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, romantic translations of the work of the Persian poet

1860 Great Expectations
Charles Dickens begins serial publication of his novel "Great Expectations" (in book form 1861)

1860 Mill on the Floss
George Eliot publishes The Mill on the Floss, her novel about the childhood of Maggie and Tom Tulliver

1861 East Lynne
Mrs Henry Wood publishes her first novel, East Lynne, which becomes the basis of the most popular of all Victorian melodramas

1862 Lewis Carroll tells Alice a story
Oxford mathematician Lewis Carroll tells 10-year-old Alice Liddell, on a boat trip, a story about her own adventures in Wonderland

1863 The Water-Babies
English author Charles Kingsley publishes an improving fantasy for young children, The Water-Babies

1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier

1866 Swinburn's Poems and Ballads
Algernon Swinburne scandalizes Victorian Britain with his first collection, Poems and Ballads

1867 Kapital hits bookstalls
The first volume of Das Kapital is completed by Marx in London and is published in Hamburg

1869 Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy
English author Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy, an influential collection of essays about contemporary society

1871 Middlemarch
George Eliot publishes Middlemarch, in which Dorothea makes a disastrous marriage to the pedantic Edward Casaubon

1874 Far from the Madding Crowd
English author Thomas Hardy has his first success with his novel Far from the Madding Crowd

1875 Henry James moves to Europe
After spending much time in Europe in recent years, Henry James moves there permanently and settles first in Paris

1875 Henry James's Roderick Hudson
Henry James's early novel Roderick Hudson is serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and is published in book form in 1876

1876 Gladstone reveals Bulgarian horrors
William Gladstone's pamphlet Bulgarian Horrors, protesting at massacre by the Turks, sells 200,000 copies within a month

1876 Henry James moves to England
Henry James moves to London, which remains his home for the next 22 years

1876 Hopkins' 'sprung rhythm'
English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins develops a new verse form that he calls 'sprung rhythm'

1876 Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature

1878 Joseph Conrad is a British seaman
21-year-old Joseph Conrad, a Polish subject, goes to sea with the British merchant navy

1879 Daisy Miller delights the public
Henry James's story Daisy Miller, about an American girl abroad, brings him a new readership

1881 Aesthetic Movement
The Aesthetic Movement and 'art for art's sake', attitudes personified above all by Whistler and Wilde, are widely mocked and satirized in Britain

1883 Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story, Treasure Island, features Long John Silver and Ben Gunn

1884 Oxford begins long trek from A to Z
Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z

1885 Burton's Arabian Nights
Explorer and orientalist Richard Burton begins publication of his multi-volume translation from the Arabic of The Arabian Nights

1886 Jekyll and Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson introduces a dual personality in his novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

1886 Mayor of Casterbridge
Thomas Hardy publishes his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, which begins with the future mayor, Michael Henchard selling his wife and child at a fair

1886 Conrad becomes British
Joseph Conrad becomes naturalized as a British subject and continues his career at sea in the far East

1887 Conan Doyle introduces Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes features in Conan Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet

1889 Yeats's first book of poetry
23-year-old Irish author William Butler Yeats publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin

1889 Fabian Essays in Socialism
The Fabian Society publishes Essays in Socialisman influential volume of essays edited by Bernard Shaw

1890 The Golden Bough
Scottish anthropologist James Frazer publishes The Golden Bough, a massive compilation of contemporary knowledge about ritual and religious custom

1890 The Young Visiters
9-year-old Daisy Ashford imagines an adult romance and high society in The Young Visiters

1891 Highland Association supports Scottish Gaelic
A Gaelic pressure group, the Highland Association, is founded to preserve the indigenous poetry and music of Scotland

1891 Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly

1891 Hardy's Tess of the Durbervilles
Thomas Hardy publishes his novel Tess of the Durbervilles, with a dramatic finale at Stonehenge

1892 Wilde has first stage hit
Oscar Wilde's comedy Lady Windermere's Fan is a great success with audiences in London's St. James Theatre

1892 Yeats promotes Irish literature
W.B. Yeats founds the National Literary Society in Dublin, with Douglas Hyde as its first president

1892 Yeats's first play
W.B. Yeats publishes a short play The Countess Cathleen, his first contribution to Irish poetic drama

1892 Shaw's Widower's Houses
Bernard Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, deals with the serious social problem of slum landlords

1892 Diary of a Nobody
Mr Pooter is the suburban anti-hero of the The Diary of a Nobody, by George and Weedon Grossmith

1894 Trilby
French-born artist and author George du Maurier publishes his novel Trilby

1894 The Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book surrounds the child Mowgli with a collection of vivid animal guardians

1895 Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde's most brilliant comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is performed in London's St. James Theatre

1895 Wilde loses to Queensberry
Oscar Wilde loses a libel case that he has brought against the marquess of Queensberry for describing him as a sodomite

1895 Wilde gets two years' hard labour
Oscar Wilde is sent to Reading Gaol to serve a two-year sentence with hard labour after being convicted of homosexuality

1895 The Time Machine
H.G. Wells publishes The Time Machine, a story about a Time Traveller whose first stop on his journey is the year 802701

1896 Shropshire Lad
English poet A.E. Housman publishes his first collection, A Shropshire Lad

1897 Maugham's Liza of Lambeth
Somerset Maugham publishes his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, based on the London life he has observed as a medical student

1897 Dracula sucks his first blood
English author Bram Stoker publishes Dracula, his gothic tale of vampirism in Transylvania

1898 Henry James moves to Rye
Henry James moves from London to Lamb House in Rye, Sussex, which remains his home for the rest of his life

1898 The War of the Worlds
H.G. Wells publishes his science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds, in which Martians arrive in a rocket to invade earth

1898 The Turn of the Screw
Henry James publishes The Turn of the Screw in a collection of short stories

1899 E. Nesbit introduces Bastable family
E. Nesbit publishes The Story of the Treasure Seekers, introducing the Bastable family who feature in several of her books for children

1900 Lord Jim
Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Lord Jim about a life of failure and redemption in the far East

1901 The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Beatrix Potter publishes at her own expense The Tale of Peter Rabbit

1901 Kipling's Kim
Rudyard Kipling's experiences of India are put to good use in his novel Kim

1902 Just So Stories
Rudyard Kipling publishes his Just So Stories for Little Children

1902 Cathleen ni Houlihan excites Dublin
The play Cathleen ni Houlihan, by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, fosters Irish nationalism

1902 Tale of Peter Rabbit published commercially
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is published commercially, a year after being first printed by Beatrix Potter at her own expense

1902 'Sea Fever'
John Masefield's poem 'Sea Fever' is published in Salt-Water Ballads

1902 The Hound of the Baskervilles
Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles begins publication in serial form

1902 The Wings of the Dove
Henry James publishes the first of his three last novels, The Wings of the Dove

1902 Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad publishes a collection of stories including Heart of Darkness, a sinister tale based partly on his own journey up the Congo

1903 Riddle of the Sands
Erskine Childers has a best-seller in The Riddle of the Sands, a thriller about a planned German invasion of Britain

1903 The Ambassadors
Henry James publishes The Ambassadors, the second of his three last novels written in rapid succession

1903 Principia Ethica
British philosopher G.E. Moore publishes Principia Ethica, an attempt to apply logic to ethics

1904 Nostromo
Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Nostromo, about a revolution in South America and a fatal horde of silver

1904 The Golden Bowl
Henry James publishes his last completed novel, The Golden Bowl

1904 Peter Pan flies for the first time
J.M Barrie's play for children Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has its premiere in London

1904 H.H. Munro becomes Saki
Under the pseudonym Saki, H.H. Munro publishes Reginald, his first volume of short stories

1905 Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group gathers for informal evenings at the family home of Virginia and Vanessa Stephens (later Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell)

1905 Wilde's De Profundis
Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, a letter of recrimination written in Reading Gaol to Lord Alfred Douglas, is published posthumously

1905 Kipps
H.G. Wells publishes Kipps: the story of a simple soul, a comic novel about a bumbling draper's assistant

1905 Two London premieres for GBS
Bernard Shaw has two new plays opening in London in the same year, Major Barbara and Man and Superman

1905 Elusive Pimpernel baffles French
Sir Percy Blakeney rescues aristocrats from the guillotine in Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel

1906 E.Nesbit's The Railway Children
E. Nesbit publishes The Railway Children, the most successful of her books featuring the Bastable family

1906 Galsworthy begins his Forsyte saga
John Galsworthy publishes The Man of Property, the first of his novels chronicling the family of Soames Forsyte

1907 Playboy of the Western World
J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World provokes violent reactions at its Dublin premiere

1907 Gosse's Father and Son
Edmund Gosse publishes Father and Son, an account of his difficult relationship with his fundamentalist father, Philip Gosse

1907 Dubliners completed
James Joyce completes the eight short stories eventually published in 1914 as Dubliners

1908 The Wind in the Willows
Rat, Mole and Toad, in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, appeal to a wide readership

1908 Super-tramp publishes autobiography
The Welsh poet W.H. Davies has a success with The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, his account of life on the road and in dosshouses

1909 Ann Veronica
The heroine of H.G. Wells' novel Ann Veronica is a determined example of the New Woman

1910 Masefield's Cargoes
In his poem Cargoes John Masefield compares a 'dirty British coaster' with two romantic boats from the past

1910 Prester John
John Buchan publishes Prester John, the first of his adventure stories

1910 The History of Mr Polly
H.G. Wells publishes The History of Mr Polly, a novel about an escape from drab everyday existence

1910 Kipling's If
Rudyard Kipling publishes If, which rapidly becomes his most popular poem among the British

1910 Howard's End
E.M. Forster publishes Howard's End, his novel about the Schlegel sisters and the Wilcox family

1911 Lawrence's The White Peacock
D.H. Lawrence's career as a writer is launched with the publication of his first novel, The White Peacock

1911 Rupert Brooke's Poems
Rupert Brooke publishes Poems, the only collection to appear before his early death in World War I

1911 Father Brown solves his first case
G.K. Chesterton's clerical detective makes his first appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown

1911 Zuleika Dobson
Max Beerbohm publishes his novel Zuleika Dobson, in which the beauty of his heroine causes havoc among the students at Oxford

1912 Wittgenstein studies with Russell
Ludwig Wittgenstein moves to Cambridge to study philosophy under Bertrand Russell

1912 De la Mare's The Listeners
Walter De la Mare establishes his reputation with the title poem of his collection The Listeners

1913 New Statesman founded
The first issue of the New Statesman is published by Beatrice and Sidney Webb

1913 Compton Mackenzie's Sinister Street
Compton Mackenzie publishes the first volume of his autobiographial novel Sinister Street

1913 Principia Mathematica
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell complete a work of mathematical logic, Principia Mathematica

1913 Sons and Lovers
D.H. Lawrence publishes a semi-autobiographical novel about the Morel family, Sons and Lovers

1914 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce's novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man begins serial publication in a London journal, The Egoist

1914 Dubliners
After years of delay James Joyce's Dubliners, a collection of short stories, is published

1914 T.S. Eliot moves to Britain
American-born poet Thomas Stearns Eliot crosses the Atlantic to England, making it his home for the rest of his life

1914 Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is published in London as an independent paper, separate from The Times

1914 Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Robert Tressell's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is published posthumously in an abbreviated version

1915 Maugham's Of Human Bondage
Somerset Maugham publishes his semi-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage

1915 Virginia Woolf's The Voyage Out
The English writer Virginia Woolf publishes her first novel, The Voyage Out

1915 Lawrence's new novel seized by police
D.H. Lawrence's novel about the Brangwen family, The Rainbow, is seized by the police as an obscene work

1915 The Thirty-Nine Steps
Secret agent Richard Hannay makes his first appearance in John Buchan's Thirty-Nine Steps

1915 Brooke's 1914 and other Poems
Rupert Brooke's 1914 and Other Poems is published a few months after his death in Greece

1916 Graves Over the Brazier
Robert Graves publishes his first book of poems, Over the Brazier

1916 Saki killed in France
The author H.H. Munro ('Saki') is killed by a sniper's bullet on a battlefield in France

1917 Jeeves and Wooster
Jeeves and Bertie Wooster make their first appearance in P.G. Wodehouse's The Man with Two Left Feet

1918 Strachey on eminent Victorians
Lytton Strachey fails to show conventional respect to four famous Victorians in his influential volume of short biographes entitled Eminent Victorians

1918 Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier
Rebecca West publishes her first novel, The Return of the Soldier

1919 Keynes attacks terms of Versailles
In The Economic Consequences of the Peace Maynard Keynes publishes a strong attack on the reparations demanded from Germany

1920 Bull-dog Drummond
Sapper's patriotic hero makes his first appearance, taking on the villainous Carl Peterson in Bull-dog Drummond