The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Volume A – Fourth Edition

Please note that these contents are not yet finalized and are subject to change in advance of publication

Readings listed in green are included on the anthology’s companion website.

Readings marked with an asterisk are new to the fourth edition

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

INTRODUCTION TO THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

• History, Narrative, Culture
• Before the Norman Conquest
• Celts in Medieval Britain and Ireland
• Roman Britain
• The Early English, c. 400–700
• Celtic Culture
• Celtic Christianity
• Early English Christianity
• Invasion and Unification
• After the Norman Conquest
• The Normans and Feudalism
• Henry II and an International Culture
• Wales, Scotland, Ireland: Norman Invasions and Their Aftermath
• The Thirteenth Century
• The English Monarchy
• Cultural Expression in the Fourteenth Century
• Fifteenth-Century Transitions
• Language and Prosody

HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE AND OF PRINT AND MANUSCRIPT CULTURE

BEDE

• from Ecclesiastical History of the English People
  • A Description of the Island of Britain and Its Inhabitants
  • The Coming of the English to Britain
  • The Life and Conversion of Edwin, King of Northumbria; the Faith of the East Angles
  • Abbess Hild of Whitby; the Miraculous Poet Cædmon
  • Cædmon’s Hymn in Old and Modern English

EARLY IRISH LYRICS

• The First Satire
• [A Bé Find, in rega lim] Fair Lady, will you go with me
• [Messe ocus Pangur Bán] Me and white Pangur
• [Is acher in gáith innocht] The wind is wild tonight
• [Techt do Róim] Going to Rome?
• The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare

EXETER BOOK ELEGIES

• The Wanderer
• The Seafarer
• The Wife’s Lament
• The Ruin

EXETER BOOK RIDDLES

• Riddle 1
• Riddle 2
• Riddle 3
• Riddle 7
• Riddle 14
• Riddle 26
• Riddle 43
• Riddle 44
• Riddle 45
• Riddle 47
• Riddle 85
• Riddle 86
• Riddle 95

THE DREAM OF THE ROOD

BEOWULF

• IN CONTEXT: Background Material
  • Glossary of Proper Names
  • Genealogies
  • The Geatish-Swedish Wars

ÆLFRIC OF EYNSHAM

• The Passion of Saint Edmund, King and Martyr

*WULFSTAN

• Sermo Lupi ad Anglos

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

• from A History of the Kings of Britain

THE FOUR BRANCHES OF THE MABINOGI

• The First Branch: Pwyll Pendeuic Dyfed: Sage, Prince of Dyfed
• The Second Branch: Branwen uerch Llyr: Blanche Crowe, Daughter of Llyr
• The Third Branch: Manawydan, son of Llyr
• The Fourth Branch: Math, son of Mathonwy

*FEAST OF BRICRIU (FLED BRICREND)

MARIE DE FRANCE

• Bisclavret (The Werewolf)
• Lanval

*THE TÁIN (TÁIN BÓ CÚAILNGE)

MIDDLE ENGLISH LYRICS

• Sumer is icumen in
• Foweles in the frith
• Betwene Mersh and Averil
• Stond well, moder, under Rode
• I lovede a child of this cuntree
• I have a gentil cock
• I sing of a maiden
• Adam lay ibounden
• Farewell this world, I take my leve forever
• Bring us in good ale
• Of all creatures women be best
• My lefe is faren in a lond

*THE CRISES OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

• The Great Famine
  • from Anonymous (the “Monk of Malmesbury”), Life of Edward the Second
• The Hundred Years’ War
  • from Jean Froissart, Chronicles
  • from Prince Edward, Letter to the People of London
• The Black Death
  • from Ralph of Shrewsbury, Letter, 17 August 1348
  • from Henry Knighton, Chronicle
  • *from Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
• The Uprising of 1381
  • from Regulations, London (1350)
  • from Statute of Laborers (1351)
  • from Statute (1363)
  • from Jean Froissart, Chronicles, Account of a Sermon by John Ball
  • John Ball, Letter to the Common People of Essex, 1381
  • from Henry Knighton, Chronicle

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

• The Decameron
  • Introduction to the First Day
  • The Third Day, Story 1: Masetto becomes Gardener to a Convent
  • The Seventh Day, Story 2: Peronella’s Lover and the Barrel
  • The Author’s Epilogue

*SIR ORFEO

• IN CONTEXT: Sir Orfeo
• from King Alfred’s translation of Boethieus’s Consolation of Philosophy
• from Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, Distinctio IV, cap. 8
• from The Wooing of Étaín

*PEARL

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

• IN CONTEXT: Illustrations from the Original Manuscript
• IN CONTEXT: The Thorn and the Yogh

JOHN GOWER

• from Confessio Amantis
  • from Book 5
• IN CONTEXT: from Geoffrey Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women
  • The Legend of Hypsipyle and Medea
  • The Legend of Medea

*WILLIAM LANGLAND

• from Piers Plowman
  • B. Prologue
  • from Passus 5
  • Passus 7
  • Passus 18

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

• To Rosemounde
• from The Canterbury Tales
  • The General Prologue
  • The General Prologue (with facing-column modern English translation)
  • The Knight’s Tale
  • The Miller’s Prologue and Tale
  • The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
  • The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale
  • The Prioress’s Prologue and Tale
  • The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale
  • Chaucer’s Retraction
  • Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse
• IN CONTEXT: Backgrounds to The Canterbury Tales

*THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE

• from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
  • Prologue
  • Chapter 7
  • Chapter 15
  • Chapter 20
  • Chapter 29

JULIAN OF NORWICH

• from A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman
  • Section 1
  • Section 2
  • Section 3
  • Section 4
  • Section 10
  • Section 11
  • Section 12
  • Section 13
• from A Revelation of Love
  • Chapter 50
  • Chapter 51
  • Chapter 58
  • Chapter 60
  • Chapter 86

MARGERY KEMPE

• from The Book of Margery Kempe
  • The Proem
  • The Preface
  • from Book 1
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • from Chapter 4
    • from Chapter 11
    • Chapter 50
    • Chapter 52
    • Chapter 53
    • Chapter 54
    • Chapter 55

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

• Celtic Christianity
• Church and Cathedral
• Religion for All: The Apostle’s Creed, the Pater Noster, and the Hail Mary
• from Robert Manning of Brunne, Handlyng Synne
• from William of Pagula, Priest’s Eye
• from The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council
• *from St. Anselm, Proslogion
• from Thomas Wimbleton, Sermon
• *from The Miracles of Thomas Becket
• Lollardy
  • from John Wycliffe, “Of Good-Preaching Priests”
  • from Account of the Heresy Trial of Margery Baxter
• The Persecution of the Jews
  • from Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich
  • from Roger Howden, Chronicle
  • from The Ordinances of the Jews
  • from The Charter of King John to the Jews
  • from The Ordinances of Henry III
  • Edward I’s Order

THE YORK CRUCIFIXION

HROSVITHA OF GANDERSHEIM

• Abraham

THE WAKEFIELD MASTER

• The Second Shepherds’ Play
  • IN CONTEXT: Biblical Source Material
    • from Douay-Rheims Bible, Luke 2.8–21

*MANKIND

EVERYMAN

SIR THOMAS MALORY

• from Morte Darthur
  • from Book 1: From the Marriage of King Uther unto King Arthur
  • Book 4: The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney
  • from Book 5: Sir Tristram de Lyones
  • from Book 6: The Noble Tale of the Sankgreal
  • Book 7: The Tale of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
  • Book 8: The Death of King Arthur
  • IN CONTEXT: Early Editions of Morte Darthur
    • Caxton’s Preface
    • Illustrating Morte Darthur

*GWERFUL MECHAIN

• Death and Judgment
• Poem to the Vagina
• A response to Ieuan Dyfi’s poem on Red Annie
• To her husband for beating her
• White Flour, Earthflesh, Cold Fleece
• Christ’s Suffering

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

INTRODUCTION TO THE RENAISSANCE AND THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

• Humanism
• Scientific Inquiry
• The Reformation in England
• Wales, Scotland, Ireland
• Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I
• Elizabeth I and Gender
• Homoeroticism and Cross-Dressing
• Economy and Society in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• “The Round Earth’s Imagined Corners”
• The Stuarts and the Civil Wars
• Literary Genres
• Literature in Prose and the Development of Print Culture
• Poetry
• The Drama
• The English Language in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE AND OF PRINT CULTURE

SIR THOMAS MORE

(Also available as a stand-alone volume)
• from Utopia: The Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia
  • from Book 1
  • from Book 2
  • Chapter 1
  • from Chapter 2: The Cities, and Especially Amaurote
  • from Chapter 4: Crafts and Occupations
  • from Chapter 5: Their Dealings With One Another
  • from Chapter 6: Traveling
  • from Chapter 7: Slavery
  • from Chapter 8: Warfare
  • from Chapter 9: The Religions in Utopia

WILLIAM TYNDALE

• Tyndale’s English Bible, King James Bible, Geneva Bible, Douay-Rheims Bible
• Genesis: Chapter 1
• Matthew: Chapter 5

SIR THOMAS WYATT

• Sonnets
  • 10 (“The long love that in my thought doth harbour”)
  • 29 (“The pillar perished is whereto I leant”)
  • 31 (“Farewell, Love, and all thy laws forever”)
• Epigrams
  • 38 (“Alas, madam, for stealing of a kiss”)
  • 48 (“Vulcan begat me; Minerva me taught”)
  • 60 (“Tagus, farewell, that westward with thy streams”)
• Ballads
  • 80 (“They flee from me that sometime did me seek”)
  • 94 (“Blame not my lute, for he must sound”)
• Songs
  • 109 (“My lute, awake! Perform the last”)
  • 123 (“Who list his wealth and ease retain”)
• Epistolary Satires
  • 149 (“Mine own John Poyns, since ye delight to know”)
• IN CONTEXT: Epistolary Advice

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY

• Love, that Doth Reign and Live within My Thought
• Set Me Whereas the Sun Doth Parch the Green
• Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace
• So Cruel Prison How Could Betide
• Wyatt Resteth Here
• from Certain Books of Virgil’s Aeneis: Book 2

THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET AND LYRIC

• The Continental Background
  • Francesco Petrarch
    • from Rime Sparse
      • 134 (“Pace non trovo et non ò da far guerra”)
      • 134 (“I find no peace and all my war is done”)
      • 140 (“Amor, che nel penser mio vive et regna”)
      • 140 (“Love, that doth reign and live within my thought”)
      • 189 (“Passa la nave mia colma d’oblio”)
      • 189 (“My galley chargèd with forgetfulness”)
      • 190 (“Una candida cerva sopra l’erba”)
      • 190 (“Whoso list to hunt, I know where is a hind”)
  • Gaspara Stampa
    • 132 (“Quando io dimando nel mio pianto Amore”)
    • 132 (“When in my weeping I inquire of Love”)
  • Joachim Du Bellay
    • from L’Olive augmentée
      • 113 (“Si nostre vie est moins qu’une journée”)
      • 113 (“If this, our life, be less than but a day”)
    • from Les Regrets
      • 31 (“Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage”)
      • 31 (“Blest he who like Ulysses voyaged fair and wide”)
  • Pierre de Ronsard
    • (“Je vouldroy bien richement jaunissant”)
    • (“I would in rich and golden coloured rain”)
    • (“Quand vous serez bien vielle, au soir à la chandelle”)
    • (“When you are very old, by candle’s flame”)
• Anne Lock
  • from A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner
    • (“Long have I heard, and yet I hear the sounds”)
    • (“Look on me, Lord: though trembling I beknowe”)
• Samuel Daniel
  • from Delia
    • 6 (“Fair is my love, and cruel as she’s fair”)
    • 28 (“Raising my hopes on hills of high desire”)
    • 33 (“When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass”)
• Michael Drayton
  • from Idea
    • 6 (“How many paltry, foolish, painted things”)
    • 61 (“Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part”)
    • 63 (“Truce, gentle Love, a parley now I crave”)
• William Shakespeare
  • from Romeo and Juliet (Act 1, Scene 5)
• Sir John Davies
  • from Gulling Sonnets
    • 3 (“What eagle can behold her sun-bright eye”)
• John Davies of Hereford
  • from The Scourge of Villany
    • (“If there were, oh! an Hellespont of cream”)
• Richard Barnfield
  • from Cynthia
    • 14 (“Here, hold this glove (this milk-white cheverel glove)”)
    • 17 (“Cherry-lipped Adonis in his snowy shape”)
• George Gascoigne
  • Gascoigne’s Lullaby
• Anonymous
  • Ode (“Absence, hear thou my protestation”)

LITERATURE IN IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND WALES

• Ireland and Scotland
  • Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh
    • from “To Domhnall”
  • Isabel, Countess of Argyll
    • There’s a young man in pursuit of me / Atá fleasgach ar mo thí
    • Woe to the one whose sickness is love / Is mairg dá ngalar an grádh
    • Woe to the one whose sickness is love (alternative translation)
  • Anonymous
    • Lament for MacGregor of Glenstrae, who was beheaded in 1570
  • Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn
    • from “The Battle of Drumleene”
    • Enniskillen
    • A Satire
  • Geoffrey Keating
    • O Woman Full of Wiles
    • Bear with Thee, O Letter, My Blessing
    • On the Miseries of Ireland
    • from History of Ireland
  • Dáibhí Ó Bruadair
    • Gone Are All the Noble Poets
    • After the Death of the Poets
  • Geoffrey O’Donoghue of the Glens
    • This caps all their tricks, this statute from overseas
  • Aodhagán Ó Rathaille
    • The Ruin that Befell the Great Families of Ireland
  • Lady Anne Lindsay
    • Auld Robin Gray
• Wales
  • Dafydd ap Gwilym
    • The Skylark
    • The Gull
    • Trouble at an Inn
      • Morfudd Like the Sun
      • The Mirror
      • The Ruin
      • The Poet and the Grey Friar
  • Tudur Penyllyn
    • Conversation between a Welshman and an Englishwoman / Ymddiddan Rhwyng Cymro a Saesnes
  • Elis Gruffydd
    • from Chronicle
      • The Story of Gwion Bach, Who Became Taliesin
      • Llywelyn and the Fool
  • Siôn Cent
    • from The Illusion of the World / Hud a Lliw y Byd

EDMUND SPENSER

• from The Faerie Queene
  • from Book 1
    • Canto 1
    • Canto 2
    • Canto 3
    • Canto 4
    • Canto 5: Summary
    • Canto 6: Summary
    • Canto 7: Summary
    • Canto 7
    • Canto 8: Summary
    • Canto 8
    • from Canto 9
    • Canto 9
    • Canto 10: Summary
    • Canto 10
    • Canto 11
  • from Book 2
    • Canto 12
  • from Book 3
    • Canto 6
• Letter to Sir Walter Ralegh on The Faerie Queene
• IN CONTEXT: The Redcrosse Knight (Illustration)
• IN CONTEXT: Christian Armor
  • from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, 6.11–17 (Geneva Bible)
  • from Desiderius Erasmus, Enchiridion militis Christiani [Handbook of the Christian Soldier]
• IN CONTEXT: Spirituality and The Faerie Queene
  • Heading to the Song of Solomon (Geneva Bible)
• from Amoretti
  • 1 (“Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands”)
  • 3 (“The soverayne beauty which I doo admyre”)
  • 6 (“Be nought dismayd that her unmovèd mind”)
  • 15 (“Ye tradefull Merchants, that with weary toyle”)
  • 22 (“This holy season fit to fast and pray”)
  • 26 (“Sweet is the Rose, but growes upon a brere”)
  • 34 (“Lyke as a ship that through the Ocean wyde”)
  • 37 (“What guyle is this, that those her golden tresses”)
  • 54 (“Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay”)
  • 64 (“Comming to kisse her lyps, (such grace I found)”)
  • 67 (“Lyke as a hunstman after weary chace”)
  • 68 (“Most glorious Lord of lyfe that on this day”)
  • 69 (“The famous warriors of the anticke world”)
  • 70 (“Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king”)
  • 74 (“Most happy letters fram’d by skilfull trade”)
  • 75 (“One day I wrote her name upon the strand”)
  • 80 (“After so long a race as I have run”)
  • 82 (“Joy of my life, full oft for loving you”)
  • 89 (“Lyke as the Culver on the barèd bough”)
• Epithalamion

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

• from Astrophil and Stella
  • 1 (“Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show”)
  • 2 (“Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot”)
  • 7 (“When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes”)
  • 18 (“With what sharp checks I in myself am shent”)
  • 20 (“Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly!”)
  • 21 (“Your words, my friend, (right healthful caustics) blame”)
  • 22 (“In highest way of heav’n the Sun did ride”)
  • 23 (“The curious wits seeing dull pensiveness”)
  • 24 (“Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart”)
  • 25 (“The wisest scholar of the wight most wise”)
  • 26 (“Though dusty wits dare scorn astrology”)
  • 27 (“Because I oft in dark abstracted guise”)
  • 31 (“With how sad steps, Oh Moon, thou climb’st the skies”)
  • 34 (“Come, let me write. ‘And to what end?’ To ease”)
  • 39 (“Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace”)
  • 41 (“Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance”)
  • 45 (“Stella oft sees the very face of woe”)
  • 47 (“What, have I thus betrayed my liberty?”)
  • 48 (“Soul’s joy, bend not those morning stars from me”)
  • 49 (“I on my horse, and Love on me doth try”)
  • 50 (“Stella, the fullness of my thoughts of thee”)
  • 51 (“Pardon mine ears, both I and they do pray”)
  • 52 (“A strife is grown between Virtue and Love”)
  • 53 (“In marital sports I have my cunning tried”)
  • 54 (“Because I breathe not love to every one”)
  • 55 (“Muses, I oft invoked your holy aid”)
  • 61 (“Oft with true sighs, oft with uncallèd tears”)
  • 69 (“O joy too high for my low style to show!”)
  • 71 (“Who will in fairest book of Nature know”)
  • 94 (“Grief find the words, for thou hast made my brain”)
  • 95 (“Yet Sighs, dear Sighs, indeed true friends you are”)
  • 96 (“Thought, with good cause thou lik’st so well the Night”)
  • 97 (“Dian, that fain would cheer her friend the Night”)
  • 98 (“Ah bed, the field where joy’s peace some do see”)
  • 99 (“When far-spent night persuades each mortal eye”)
  • 100 (“Oh tears, no tears, but rain from Beauty’s skies”)
  • 101 (“Stella is sick, and in that sickbed lies”)
  • 102 (“Where be those roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?”)
  • 103 (“Oh happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear”)
  • 104 (“Envious wits, what hath been mine offence”)
  • 105 (“Unhappy sight, and hath she vanished by”)
  • 106 (“Oh absent presence, Stella is not here”)
  • 107 (“Stella, since thou so right a princess art”)
  • 108 (“When Sorrow (using mine own fire’s might)”)
• from The Defence of Poesy
• IN CONTEXT: The Abuse of Poesy
  • from Plato, The Republic, from Book 2
  • from Stephen Gosson, The School of Abuse
• from The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia
  • from Book 1
• IN CONTEXT: An Emblem Honoring Sir Philip Sidney
  • from Geffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblems

ELIZABETH I, QUEEN OF ENGLAND

• Written on a Wall at Woodstock
• Written in Her French Psalter
• The Doubt of Future Foes
• On Monsieur’s Departure
• Poems Exchanged between Sir Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth I
  • [Ralegh to Elizabeth]
  • [Elizabeth to Ralegh]
• When I Was Fair and Young
• To Our Most Noble and Virtuous Queen Katherine
• The answer of the Queen’s Highness to the petitions proponed unto her by the Lower House concerning her marriage
• Letters to the Duke of Anjou
• Speech to the House of Commons, 28 January 1563
• from Speech to a Parliamentary Delegation, 5 November 1566
• IN CONTEXT: Elizabeth and Marriage
  • Letter to Elizabeth I from William Cecil, Lord Burghley Regarding Her Proposed Marriage
• from Speech to Parliament, 29 March 1586
• IN CONTEXT: Elizabeth and Catholicism
  • Pope Pius V, The Bull of Excommunication Against Elizabeth
• Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots
  • from Letter from Elizabeth I to Mary, Queen of Scots, 24 February 1567
  • Letter from Elizabeth I to Mary, Queen of Scots, 12 October 1586
  • Letter from Mary, Queen of Scots to Henry III, 8 February 1587
  • Letter from Elizabeth I to James VI, 14 February 1587
• To the Troops at Tilbury
• IN CONTEXT: The Speech at Tilbury
  • Thomas Deloney, “The Queen’s Visiting of the Camp at Tilbury”
• Two Letters from Elizabeth to Catherine de Bourbon
• Letter from Elizabeth I to Essex in Ireland, 19 July 1599
• IN CONTEXT: Tyrone’s Rebellion (The Nine Years’ War)
• The Golden Speech
• IN CONTEXT: The Defeat of the Spanish Armada

CULTURE: A PORTFOLIO

• Painting
  • from Nicholas Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Art of Limning
  • from A Letter to F.P. Verney from the Countess of Sussex
  • Oliver Cromwell, Instructions to His Painter, as Reported by George Vertue, Notebooks
• Children and Education
  • Selected Illustrations
• The Supernatural and the Miraculous
  • from Reginald Scot, The Discovery of Witchcraft
  • from George Gifford, A Discourse of the Subtle Practices of Devils by Witches and Sorcerers
  • from William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft
  • from Joseph Hall, Characters of Virtues and Vices
  • anonymous broadsheet, “The Form and Shape of a Monstrous Child”
• Crime
  • Selected Illustration
  • from “A True Report of the late Horrible Murder Committed by William Sherwood”
• *Gender and Cross-Dressing
  • from anonymous, Hic Mulier: or, The Man-Woman
  • from anonymous, Haec-Vir: or, The Womanish-Man
  • from anonymous, The Life of Long Meg of Westminster
• *Morality and the Theater
  • from Stephen Gosson, Plays Confuted in Five Actions, Proving That They Are Not to Be Suffered in a Christian Commonweal
  • from Philip Stubbes, “Of Stage-Plays and Interludes, with Their Wickedness,” The Anatomy of Abuses in Ailgna
• Print and Manuscript Culture
  • Selected Illustrations
• Music
  • from Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler
• Games and Pastimes
  • Selected Illustrations
• Food and Drink
  • from An Anonymous Venetian Official Traveling in England, A Relation, or Rather a True Account, of the Island of England
  • from Fynes Moryson, Itinerary
  • Selected Illustrations
  • from Sarah Longe, Mrs. Sarah Longe Her Receipt Book
  • from William Harrison, Chronologie
• Emblems
  • from Geffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblems

*JOHN LYLY

• Gallathea

AEMILIA LANYER

• To the Virtuous Reader
• Salve Deus Rex Judæorum [Complete text]
• from Salve Deus Rex Judæorum
  • “Invocation”
  • “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women”
• The Description of Cooke-ham
• To the Doubtful Reader

SIR WALTER RALEGH

• A Vision Upon This Conceit of the Fairy Queen
• Sir Walter Ralegh to His Son
• The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
• The Lie
• Nature That Washed Her Hands in Milk
• The Author’s Epitaph, Made by Himself
• from The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana…
  • Part 1, Preface
  • from Part 5
• Letter to His Wife

*OTHER LANDS, OTHER CULTURES

• from George Abbot, A Brief Description of the Whole World
• from Richard Zouch, The Dove; Or, Passages of Cosmography
• The Americas
  • from Richard Eden, The Decades of the New World or West India
  • from Michel de Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”
  • from William Shakespeare, The Tempest
  • from John Smith, General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles
  • from Arthur Barlow, “The first voyage made to the coasts of America”
  • Thomas Hariot, from A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
  • Michael Drayton, “To the Virginian Voyage”
  • John Rolfe, from “Letter to Sir Thomas Dale”
  • from Richard Whitbourne, A Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland
  • Robert Hayman, “To My Very Good Friend Mr. John Poynts”
  • from “The Royal Charter for Incorporating the Hudson’s Bay Company”
• Asia and Africa
  • from Sir John Hawkins, Account of His Third Voyage, in Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation
  • from Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan/Leo Africanus, A Geographical History of Africa
  • from Richard Knolles, The General History of the Turks
  • Anthony Jenkinson, from “The Voyage of Master Anthony Jenkinson”
  • from George Whetstone, The English Mirror
• Ideas of Blackness
  • Letters from Elizabeth I regarding Deportation of Blackmoors
  • from Sir Thomas Herbert, A Relation of Some Years Travel
  • from Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenets, and Commonly Presumed Truths

FRANCIS BACON

• from Essays
  • Of Truth
  • Of Marriage and Single Life
  • Of Studies (1597)
  • Of Studies (1625)
  • Of Love

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

• • Hero and Leander

Passionate Shepherd to His Love

• The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (“A” Text)
• IN CONTEXT: Dr. Faustus
  • from Anonymous, The History of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus
  • from Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia (Of Occult Philosophy)
• IN CONTEXT: Dr. Faustus, the “B” Text

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

• Sonnets
  • 1 (“From fairest creatures we desire increase”)
  • 2 (“When forty winters shall besiege thy brow”)
  • 12 (“When I do count the clock that tells the time”)
  • 15 (“When I consider everything that grows”)
  • 16 (“But wherefore do not you a mightier way”)
  • 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”)
  • 19 (“Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws”)
  • 20 (“A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted”)
  • 23 (“As an unperfect actor on the stage”)
  • 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”)
  • 30 (“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought”)
  • 33 (“Full many a glorious morning have I seen”)
  • 35 (“No more be grieved at that which thou hast done”)
  • 36 (“Let me confess that we two must be twain”)
  • 55 (“Not marble, nor the gilded monuments”)
  • 60 (“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore”)
  • 64 (“When I have seen by time’s fell hand defaced”)
  • 65 (“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea”)
  • 71 (“No longer mourn for me when I am dead”)
  • 73 (“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”)
  • 74 (“But be contented when that fell arrest”)
  • 80 (“O how I faint when I of you do write”)
  • 87 (“Farewell—thou art too dear for my possessing”)
  • 93 (“So shall I live supposing thou art true”)
  • 94 (“They that have power to hurt and will do none”)
  • 97 (“How like a winter hath my absence been”)
  • 98 (“From you have I been absent in the spring”)
  • 105 (“Let not my love be called idolatry”)
  • 106 (“When in the chronicle of wasted time”)
  • 109 (“O never say that I was false of heart”)
  • 110 (“Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there”)
  • 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)
  • 117 (“Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all”)
  • 127 (“In the old age black was not counted fair”)
  • 128 (“How oft when thou, my music, music play’st”)
  • 129 (“Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame”)
  • 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”)
  • 135 (“Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will”)
  • 136 (“If thy soul check thee that I come so near”)
  • 138 (“When my love swears that she is made of truth”)
  • 143 (“Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch”)
  • 144 (“Two loves I have, of comfort and despair”)
  • 146 (“Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth”)
  • 147 (“My love is as a fever, longing still”)
  • 153 (“Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep”)
  • 154 (“The little love-god lying once asleep”)
• Twelfth Night
• *A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• The Merchant of Venice
• IN CONTEXT: Jews and Christians
• King Lear
• IN CONTEXT: The Theater in Shakespeare’s Time

*JOHN WEBSTER

• The Duchess of Malfi

BEN JONSON

• To the Reader
• To My Book
• On Something that Walks Somewhere
• To William Camden
• On My First Daughter
• To John Donne
• On My First Son
• On Lucy, Countess of Bedford
• Inviting a Friend to Supper
• To Penshurst
• Song: To Celia
• To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, And What He Hath Left Us
• Ode to Himself
• My Picture Left in Scotland
• To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison
• Karolin’s Song
• Hymn to Cynthia
• Clerimont’s Song

*THOMAS MIDDLETON AND THOMAS DEKKER (sites.broadviewpress/bablonline)

• The Roaring Girl
• IN CONTEXT: The Roaring Girl

*THOMAS DEKKER, JOHN FORD, AND WILLIAM ROWLEY

• The Witch of Edmonton

JOHN DONNE

• from Songs and Sonnets
  • The Good-Morrow
  • Song (“Go, and catch a falling star”)
  • Woman’s Constancy
  • The Sun Rising
  • The Canonization
  • Song (“Sweetest love, I do not go”)
  • Air and Angels
  • Break of Day
  • The Anniversary
  • Twicknam Garden
  • A Valediction: of Weeping
  • The Flea
  • A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day
  • The Bait
  • The Apparition
  • A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
  • The Ecstasy
  • The Relic
• from Elegies
  • 1. Jealousy
  • 8. The Comparison
  • 19. To His Mistress Going to Bed
• from Satires
  • 3 (“Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids”)
• from Verse Letters
  • To Sir Henry Wotton
  • An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary
• Holy Sonnets
  • 2 (“As due by many titles I resign”)
  • 5 (“I am a little world made cunningly”)
  • 6 (“This is my play’s last scene, here heavens appoint”)
  • 7 (“At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow”)
  • 9 (“If poisonous minerals, and if that tree”)
  • 10 (“Death be not proud, though some have called thee”)
  • 13 (“What if this present were the world’s last night?”)
  • 14 (“Batter my heart, three personed God; for you”)
  • 18 (“Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse, so bright and clear”)
  • 19 (“Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one”)
• Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
• A Hymn to God the Father
• Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
• from Devotions
  • Meditation 17

*JOHN SMITH

• from The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles
  • from The Third Book
  • from Chapter 1 [Voyage to Virginia and first weeks there]
  • from Chapter 2: What Happened Till the First Supply
  • from Chapter 8: Captain Smith’s Journey to Pamunkey
  • from The Fourth Book
    • John Smith’s Relation to Queen Anne of Pocahontas
    • [Smith’s Farewell to Virginia]
  • from The Sixth Book
  • The Description of New England

*UNCONSTANT WOMEN, EXCELLENT WOMEN: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DEBATE

• from John Donne, Paradoxes and Problems
  • from Paradox 1: “A Defense of Women’s Inconstancy”
  • Paradox 6: “That It Is Possible to Find Some Virtue in Some Women”
  • Problem 6: “Why Hath the Common Opinion Afforded Women Souls?”
• from Joseph Swetnam, The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women
  • from Chapter 2
• from Rachel Speght, A Muzzle for Melastomus
• from Ester Sowernam, Ester Hath Hanged Haman: An Answer to a Lewd Pamphlet, Entitled The Arraignment of Women
  • Chapter 2
  • Chapter 4
  • Chapter 6
  • Chapter 7
  • Chapter 8
• from Owen Felltham, Resolves
  • “Of Woman”

LADY MARY WROTH

• from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
  • 1 (“When night’s black mantle could most darkness prove”)
  • 6 (“My pain, still smothered in my grieved breast”)
  • 7 (“Love leave to urge, thou know’st thou hast the hand”)
  • 13 (“Dear, famish not what you your self gave food”)
  • 14 (“Am I thus conquered? have I lost the powers”)
  • 15 (“Truly poor Night thou welcome art to me”)
  • 22 (“Like to the Indians, scorched with the sun”)
  • 23 (“When every one to pleasing pastime hies”)
  • 35 (“False hope which feeds but to destroy, and spill”)
• A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love
  • 77 (“In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn?”)
  • 78 (“Is to leave all, and take the thread of love”)
  • 79 (“His flames are joys, his bands true lovers’ might”)
  • 80 (“And be in his brave court a glorious light”)
  • 81 (“And burn, yet burning you will love the smart”)
  • 82 (“He may prophet, and our tutor prove”)
  • 83 (“How blest be they, then, who his favours prove”)
  • 84 (“He that shuns love, doth love himself the less”)
  • 85 (“But where they may return with honour’s grace”)
  • 86 (“Be from the court of Love, and Reason torn”)
  • 87 (“Unprofitably pleasing, and unsound”)
  • 88 (“Be giv’n to him who triumphs in his right”)
  • 89 (“Free from all fogs, but shining fair, and clear”)
  • 90 (“Except my heart, which you bestowed before”)
• Railing Rhymes Returned upon the Author by Mistress Mary Wroth
• IN CONTEXT: The Occasion of “Railing Rhymes”
  • Edward Denny, Baron of Waltham, To Pamphilia from the father-in-law of Seralius

THOMAS HOBBES

• Leviathan; Or the Matter, Form, & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil
  • The Introduction
  • Chapter 13: Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning their Felicity and Misery

ROBERT HERRICK

• The Argument of His Book
• Delight in Disorder
• His Farewell to Sack
• Corinna’s Going A-Maying
• To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
• The Hock-Cart, or Harvest Home
• Julia’s Clothes

*WILLIAM BRADFORD

• from Of Plymouth Plantation

GEORGE HERBERT

• Altar
• Redemption
• Easter Wings
• Affliction (1)
• Prayer (1)
• The Temper (1)
• Jordan (1)
• Church-Monuments
• The Windows
• Denial
• Vanity (1)
• Virtue
• The Pearl
• Man
• Jordan (2)
• Time
• The Bunch of Grapes
• The Collar
• The Pulley
• The Flower
• Discipline
• Death
• Love (3)

ANDREW MARVELL

• The Coronet
• Bermudas
• A Dialogue between the Soul and Body
• The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn
• To His Coy Mistress
• The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
• The Mower against Gardens
• Damon the Mower
• The Garden
• An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland

KATHERINE PHILIPS

• A Married State
• Upon the Double Murder of King Charles
• On the Third of September, 1651
• To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship
• Friendship’s Mystery, To My Dearest Lucasia
• On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips
• Friendship in Emblem, or the Seal, To My Dearest Lucasia

*NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN PERIODS

• from Petrarch, Letter to Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro [The Ascent of Mount Ventoux]
• from Georgius Agricola (Georg Bauer), De Re Metallica
• Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, “The Soote Season”
• from John Dee, The Perfect Art of Navigation
• from Arthur Standish, The Commons Complaint
• from Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (from the Sixth Song) [the beaver]
• from Lady Mary Wroth, Urania
• George Herbert, “Providence”
• Robert Vaughan, King Charles’s Royal Oak Tree
• Margaret Cavendish “Dialogue between and Oak and a Man Cutting Him Down”
• from Gervase Markham, The Enrichment of the Weald of Kent
• from Gerald Winstanley, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England
• from John Evelyn, Fumifugium and Sylva
• from Thomas Tryon, The Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness (“The Complaint of the Cows and Oxen,” “The Sheep’s Complaint”)
• Anne Bradstreet, from “Contemplations”
• Sarah Kemble Knight, from The Journal of Madame Knight

JOHN MILTON

• L’Allegro
• Il Penseroso
• Lycidas
• Sonnets
  • 7 (“How soon hath Time the subtle thief of youth”)
  • 16: To the Lord General Cromwell
  • 18: On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
  • 19 (“When I consider how my light is spent”)
  • 23 (“Methought I saw my late espoused saint”)
• from Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England
• from Paradise Lost
  • The Verse
  • Argument to Book 1
  • Book 1
  • Argument to Book 2
  • Book 2
  • Argument to Book 3
  • from Book 3
  • Argument to Book 4
  • Book 4
  • Argument to Book 5
  • from Book 5
  • Argument to Book 6
  • Argument to Book 7
  • from Book 7
  • Argument to Book 8
  • from Book 8
  • Argument to Book 9
  • Book 9
  • Argument to Book 10
  • Book 10
  • Argument to Book 11
  • Argument to Book 12
  • from Book 12
• IN CONTEXT: Illustrating Paradise Lost
• Samson Agonistes (Also available as a stand-alone volume)
• IN CONTEXT: The Biblical Version of the Samson Story

*LEVELLERS, DIGGERS, RANTERS, AND COVENANTERS

• Information from the Scottish Nation
• William Walwyn, The Bloody Project
• from Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll
  • The Preface
  • from A Second Fiery Flying Roll
  • Chapter 3
• Gerrard Winstanley, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England
• The Diggers’ Song

THE RESTORATION AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

INTRODUCTION TO THE RESTORATION AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

• Religion, Government, and Party Politics
• Empiricism, Skepticism, and Religious Dissent
• Industry, Commerce, and the Middle Class
• Ethical Dilemmas in a Changing Nation
• Print Culture
• Poetry
• Theater
• The Novel
• The Development of the English Language

HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE AND OF PRINT CULTURE

MARGARET CAVENDISH

• The Poetess’s Hasty Resolution
• An Excuse for so Much Writ Upon My Verses
• A World Made by Atoms
• The Four Principal Figured Atoms Make the Four Elements, as Square, Round, Long, and Sharp
• What Atoms Make a Palsy, or Apoplexy
• All Things Are Governed by Atoms
• The Motion of the Blood
• Of Many Worlds in this World
• A World in an Earring
• A Dialogue betwixt the Body and the Mind
• A Dialogue between an Oak, and a Man Cutting Him Down
• A Dialogue betwixt Peace, and War
• Earth’s Complaint
• The Hunting of the Hare
• Nature’s Cook
• A Woman Drest by Age
• Of the Theme of Love
• from The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World
• from Sociable Letters

*JOHN BUNYAN

• from The Pilgrim’s Progress
  • The Author’s Apology for His Book
  • from The Second Part

JOHN DRYDEN

• Absalom and Achitophel: A Poem
• Mac Flecknoe
• To the Memory of Mr. Oldham
• A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day
• from An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

SAMUEL PEPYS

• from The Diary
  • IN CONTEXT: Other Accounts of the Great Fire
  • from The London Gazette (3–10 September 1666)

*MARY ROWLANDSON

• The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
• IN CONTEXT: Editions of Rowlandson’s Narrative
• IN CONTEXT: Picturing Mary Rowlandson
• IN CONTEXT: Indigenous Experiences of Metacom’s War

APHRA BEHN

• The Disappointment
• Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave. A True History
• *The Rover

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY

• The Country Wife

JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

• A Satire on Charles II
• A Satire against Reason and Mankind
• Love and Life: A Song
• The Disabled Debauchee
• A Letter from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country
• The Imperfect Enjoyment
• Impromptu on Charles II
• IN CONTEXT: The Lessons of Rochester’s Life

DANIEL DEFOE

• A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal
• from Robinson Crusoe
  • from Chapter 3
  • Chapter 4
  • Chapter 5
  • Chapter 6
• IN CONTEXT: Illustrating Robinson Crusoe
• Selected Illustrations from Robinson Crusoe
• from A Journal of the Plague Year

ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA

• from The Spleen: A Pindaric Poem
• The Introduction
• A Letter to Daphnis, April 2, 1685
• To Mr. F., Now Earl of W.
• The Unequal Fetters
• By neer resemblance that Bird betray’d
• A Nocturnal Reverie

JONATHAN SWIFT

• The Progress of Beauty
• A Description of a City Shower
• Stella’s Birthday, written in the year 1718
• Stella’s Birthday (1727)
• The Lady’s Dressing Room
• Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift
• from Gulliver’s Travels
  • Part 1: A Voyage to Lilliput
  • Part 2: A Voyage to Brobdingnag
  • Part 3: A Voyage to Laputa
  • Part 4: A Voyage to the Country of The Houyhnhnms
• A Modest Proposal
• IN CONTEXT: Sermons and Tracts: Backgrounds to A Modest Proposal
  • from Jonathan Swift, “Causes of the Wretched Condition of Ireland”
  • from Jonathan Swift, A Short View of the State of Ireland

*THE ENLIGHTENMENT

• Ideas of Democracy, Ideals of Equality
  • from Baron de Lahontan, Interviews or Dialogues Between a Savage and the Baron de Lahontan
  • from David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature
  • from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality
  • from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract or The Principles of Political Right
  • from Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
  • from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality [longer selections online]
  • from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract or The Principles of Political Right [longer selections online]
• Rationalizing Colonialism and Enslavement
  • from Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
  • from John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government
  • from George Washington, letter to James Duane, 7 September 1783
• Revolutionary Arguments
  • Thomas Jefferson, “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled”
  • from Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution
  • from Benjamin Banneker, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 19 August 1791
  • [French] Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
  • Declaration of the Independence of the Blacks of St. Domingo
  • from Samuel Johnson, “Taxation No Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress”
  • from Lemuel Haynes, “Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping”
  • from Abraham Bishop, “The Rights of Black Men”
  • from Jean-Jacques Dessalines, “Liberty or Death. Proclamation. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Governor General, to the People of Hayti”
• Women’s Rights and Reason
  • from Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator No. 10
  • from Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
  • from Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
• Sympathy for Humans, and for other Animals
  • from William Hogarth, The Four Stages of Cruelty
  • from Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
  • from Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments; or, An Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves
  • from Voltaire, Toleration and Other Essays, “We Must Take Sides; or, The Principal of Action”
• Toleration
  • from Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenet of Persecution
  • from John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration
  • from Voltaire, “We Must Take Sides; Or, the Principle of Action”

ALEXANDER POPE

• An Essay on Criticism [complete text]
• from An Essay on Criticism
• The Rape of the Lock: An Heroi-Comical Poem in Five Cantos
• Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
• Eloisa To Abelard
• from An Essay on Man
  • The Design
  • Epistle 1
  • Epistle 2
• An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot

*SAMUEL RICHARDSON

• from Pamela
  • letter 24
  • letter 25
• IN CONTEXT: Satirizing Pamela
• from Henry Fieldling, Shamela
• from Clarissa

*LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

• Saturday; The Small Pox
• The Reasons that Induced Dr. S. to Write a Poem Called The Lady’s Dressing Room
• The Lover: A Ballad
• Epistle from Mrs. Y[onge] to Her Husband
• *A Plain Account of the Inoculating of the Smallpox by a Turkey Merchant
• *from Turkish Embassy Letters
• Selected Letters

ELIZA HAYWOOD

• Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze
• IN CONTEXT: The Eighteenth-Century Sexual Imagination
  • from A Present for a Servant-Maid
  • from Venus in the Cloister; or, The Nun in Her Smock

PRINT CULTURE, STAGE CULTURE

• from Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear
  • from Act 5
• from Colley Cibber, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber
• from Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
  • Introduction
  • from Chapter 1: The Immodesty of the Stage
  • from Chapter 4: The Stage-Poets Make Their Principal Persons Vicious and Reward Them at the End of the Play
• from Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 18 (21 March 1711)
• from The Licensing Act of 1737
• from The Statute of Anne
• from James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
• Joseph Addison, The Tatler No. 224 (14 September 1710)
• from Samuel Johnson, The Idler No. 30 (11 November 1758)
• from Clara Reeve, The Progress of Romance
• from James Lackington, Memoirs of the Forty-Five First Years of the Life of James Lackington, Bookseller
• from Thomas Erskine, Speech as Prosecution in the Seditious-Libel Trial of Thomas Williams for Publishing Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine

EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PERIODICALS

• from Joseph Addison, The Tatler No. 155 [The Political Upholsterer] (6 April 1710)
• from The Female Tatler No. 1 [Introduction, Advertisment] (8 July 1709)
• Richard Steele, The Spectator No. 11 [Inkle and Yarico] (13 March 1711)
• Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 112 [Sir Roger at Church] (19 July 1711)
• from Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 127 [On the Hoop Petticoat] (26 July 1711)
• from Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator Book 1 [Erminia] (April 1744)
• Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 114 [On Capital Punishment] (20 April 1751)

JAMES THOMSON

• Winter
• Rule, Britannia

*HENRY FIELDING

• from Joseph Andrews

*SAMUEL JOHNSON

• The Vanity of Human Wishes
• On the Death of Dr. Robert Levett
• from The Rambler
  • No. 4 [On Fiction] (31 March 1750)
  • No. 60 [On Biography] (13 October 1750)
  • *No. 130 [The History of a Beauty]
  • *No. 133 [The Miseries of a Beauty Defaced]
  • No. 155 [On Becoming Acquainted with Our Real Characters] (10 September 1751)
• from The Idler
  • No. 31 [On Idleness] (18 November 1758)
  • No. 49 [Will Marvel] (24 March 1759)
  • No. 81 [On Native Americans]
• from A Dictionary of the English Language
  • from The Preface
  • Selected Entries
• from The Preface to The Works of William Shakespeare
• from Lives of the English Poets
  • from John Milton
  • from Alexander Pope
• Selected Letters

THOMAS GRAY

• Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
• Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat
• Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West
• Elegy Written in a County Churchyard
• The Bard

*SAMSON OCCOM

• [Autobiographical Narrative]
• Elm Bark Box

*EMPIRE AND ENTERPRISE

• Britain’s Place in the World
  • Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 69
  • James Thomson, “Rule, Britannia!”
  • from Ignatius Sancho, letter to Jack Wingrave, 1778
• Race and Taxonomy
  • from Carl Linnaeus with Robert Kerr, The Animal Kingdom, or Zoological System, of the Celebrated Sir Charles Linnæus
  • from Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Buffon’s Natural History, Volume 4
  • from Henry Home, Lord Kames, Sketches of the History of Man
  • from Thomas Clarkson, Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
• Immigration to America
  • from William Moraley, The Infortunate: The Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley, an Indentured Servant
  • from Lady Lucan, “On the Present State of Ireland”
  • from Benjamin Franklin, Information to Those Who Would Remove to America
  • from Ebenezer Cooke, The Sotweed Factor
  • from Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania
  • from Commissioners of the Customs in Scotland, Report on the Examination of the Emigrants from the Counties of Caithness and Sutherland
  • from J. Hector St. John Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer
  • from Anonymous, Look Before You Leap
  • from Israel Potter, Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter
• Colonists and Indigenous People
  • from Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
  • Richard Steele, The Spectator No. 11 [Inkle and Yarico]
  • from Canassatego, Speech at Lancaster, 26 June 1744
  • Mittark, Agreement of Mittark and His People Not to Sell Land to the English
  • from William Penn, “A Letter from William Penn, Proprietary and Governor of Pennsylvania in America, to the Committee of the Free Society of Traders of that Province Residing in London”
  • Benjamin Franklin, “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America”
  • William Wordsworth, “Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman”
  • from Susannah Johnson, The Captive American, or A Narrative of the Suffering of Mrs. Johnson During Four Years Captivity with the Indians and French
• The East India Company
  • Edmund Burke, Speech on the East India Bill, 1 December 1783
  • Abu Talib Khan, “Ode to London”

CHRISTOPHER SMART

• from Jubilate Agno
• [My Cat Jeoffry]

WILLIAM COWPER

• Light Shining Out of Darkness
• from The Task
  • Advertisement
  • from Book 1: The Sofa
  • from Book 6: The Winter Walk at Noon
• The Castaway
• The Retired Cat
• On the Loss of the Royal George
• My Mary

LABORING-CLASS POETS

• Stephen Duck
  • The Thresher’s Labour
• Mary Collier
  • The Woman’s Labour: To Mr. Stephen Duck
• Mary Leapor
  • An Epistle to a Lady
  • To a Gentleman with a Manuscript Play
  • Crumble Hall
• Elizabeth Hand
  • On the Supposition of an Advertisement Appearing in a Morning Paper, of the Publication of a Volume of Poems, by a Servant Maid
• Robert Bloomfield
  • The Farmer’s Boy

HESTER THRALE PIOZZI

• from Hester Thrale’s Journal
  • 31 December 1773
  • 30 September 1774
  • 2 October 1774
  • 23 July 1776
  • 7 January 1777

OLAUDAH EQUIANO OR GUSTAVUS VASSA

• from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
  • Chapter 1
  • Chapter 2
  • *from Chapter 3
  • *from Chapter 4
  • *Chapter 5
  • *from Chapter 6
  • Chapter 7
  • from Chapter 8
  • from Chapter 9
  • *from Chapter 10
  • from Chapter 11
  • from Chapter 12
• IN CONTEXT: Reactions to Olaudah Equiano’s Work
  • from The Analytic Review (May 1789)
  • from The Gentleman’s Magazine (June 1789)
  • from The Monthly Review (June 1789)
  • from The General Magazine and Impartial Review (July 1789)

*SLAVERY AND RESISTANCE

• Richard Ligon, A True & Exact History of the Island of Barbados
• letter to the South Carolina Gazette
• Belinda Sutton, Petition of Belinda, An African
• from Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
• Hannah More, “Slavery: A Poem”
• Ann Yearsley, “A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade”
• William Cowper, “Sweet Meat Has Sour Sauce, or, The Slave-Trader in the Dumps”
• from William Wilberforce, “Speech to the House of Commons,” 13 May 1789
• Anna Laetitia Barbauld, “Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq., on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade”
• William Cowper, “Sweet Meat Has Sour Sauce, or, The Slave-Trader in the Dumps”
• from William Wilberforce, “Speech to the House of Commons,” 13 May 1789
• Anna Laetitia Barbauld, “Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq., on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade”
• from John Newton, A Slave Trader’s Journal
• from John Woolman, “Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes”
• from James Grainger, The Sugar-Cane
• John Bicknell and Thomas Day, “The Dying Negro, A Poem”
• from William Cowper, The Task
• from Alexander Falconbridge, Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa
• Proponents of Slavery
  • from Reverend Robert Boncher Nicholls, Observations, Occasioned by the Attempts Made in England to Effect the Abolition of the Slave Trade
  • from Anonymous, Thoughts on the Slavery of Negroes, as It Affects the British Colonies in the West Indies: Humbly Submitted to the Consideration of Both Houses of Parliament
  • from Gordon Turnbull, An Apology of Negro Slavery; or, the West India Planters Vindicated from the Charge of Inhumanity
• from Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men
• William Blake, Images of Slavery
• from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, On the Slave Trade
• from William Earle, Obi; or, the History of Three-Fingered Jack
• Mary Robinson, Poems on Slavery
  • “The African”
  • “The Negro Girl”
• from Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal
• from Thomas Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade
• from Matthew Gregory Lewis, Journal of a West India Proprietor
• The Haitian Revolution
  • from Baron de Wimpffen, A Voyage to Saint Domingo, in the Years 1788, 1789, and 1790
    • from Letter 12, May 1789
    • from Letter 23, March 1790
  • from “Insurrection at St. Domingo: No. 1: Remarks on the Resolutions of the West-India Merchants and Planters, at the London Tavern, Nov. 3, and 8, 1791,” Star and Evening Advertiser (18 November 1791)
  • William Wordsworth, “To Toussaint L’Ouverture”
  • from Jean-Jacques Dessalines, “Liberty or Death. Proclamation. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Governor General, to the People of Hayti”

*RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

• The School for Scandal

*FRANCES BURNEY

• from Evelina
  • from Preface
  • from Letter 50

PHILLIS WHEATLEY

• To Maecenas
• To the University of Cambridge, in New-England
• To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty
• On Being Brought from Africa to America
• On the Death of a Young Lady of Five Years of Age
• On the Death of a Young Gentleman
• An Hymn to the Morning
• On Recollection
• On Imagination
• To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North-America
• To S.M., a Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works
• A Farewell to America. To Mrs. S.W.
• To His Excellency General Washington
• On the Death of General Wooster
• On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield
• Selected Letters
• IN CONTEXT: Preface to Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
• IN CONTEXT: Reactions to Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
  • Letter from Ignatius Sancho to Jabez Fisher, 27 January 1778
  • from Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1784)

*OTTOBAH CUGOANO

• from Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species

*BRITON HAMMON

• A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man

APPENDICES

• READING POETRY
• MAPS
• MONARCHS AND PRIME MINISTERS
• GLOSSARY OF TERMS
• BRITISH MONEY
• TEXTS AND CONTEXTS: CHRONOLOGICAL CHART
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INDEX OF FIRST LINES
• INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES