The Longman Anthology of British Literature is the first new anthology of British literature to appear in over 25 years. A major work of scholarship, it brings together an extraordinary collection of writings spanning some 1300 years of literary history from the Middle Ages to the present. Volume One covers The Middle Ages, The Early Modern Period, and The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. The text aims to give a less monumental, more contextualized presentation of British literature. The traditional canonical writers are fully represented, with coverage of such central figures as Spencer, Milton, and Shakespeare. But alongside these are numerous other literary voices, especially those of women. The most distinctive feature of the anthology are groupings of texts that allow contemporary social, political, and literary controversies to unfold in the voices of those who participated in them, thus enabling the great works of British literature to be taught in the context of their times.