This volume consists of the Appendices from the nine volumes of The New Pelican Guide, as follows, and these define the wide scope of this volume: 1 Part One. Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition, with an anthology. - 1 Part Two: Medieval Literature: The European Inheritance, with an anthology. - 2: The Age of Shakespeare. - 3. From Donne to Marvell. - 4: From Dryden to Johnson. - 5: From Blake to Byron. - 6: From Dickens to Hardy. - 7: From James to Eliot. - 8: The Present. - 9: American Literature.

This guide, a companion volume to the series, draws together the bibliographical material contained in the nine individual volumes. It also includes short biographical résumés of the major literary figures and their works, from Chaucer and Langland to the present day.