This is a completely updated and expanded second edition of the wide-ranging and accessible Routledge History of Literature in English. It covers the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature and has extensive accompanying language notes which explore the interrelationships between language and literature. With a span from AD 600 to the present day, it emphasises the growth of literary writing, its traditions, conventions and changing characteristics, and includes literature from the margins, both geographical and cultural. Extensive quotations from poetry, prose and drama underpin the narrative. The second edition covers recent developments in literary and cultural theory and has the following features: * additional or extended material on post-colonial writers, and the literature of the 1990s * an expanded Timeline with Booker, Whitbread, and Nobel prize winners * additions to the well-received language notes which include 'Shakespeare's language', 'Reading the language of theatre and drama', 'New modes of modern writing' and 'International and rotten Englishes' * An expanded Timeline with Booker, Whitbread, and Nobel prize winners.