This work provides students of English Literature with a selective guide to important writers and their works from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present. The first chapter presents reference materials on English literature in general; each entry includes complete bibliographic information. A chronological arrangement is used in chapters two through seven, with each chapter devoted to a specific literary period: Old English, Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration, Nineteenth Century, and Twentieth Century. An author-subject index provides immediate access to the 4,128 entries. The last six chapters first list bibliographies and criticism of a particular period as a whole; then each genre (drama, poetry, prose) is divided into (1) works about the genre as a whole and (2) individual authors or works of unknown authorship arranged alphabetically. Works were selected according to how prominently an author was regarded in standard literary histories. Usually editions of complete or collected works are listed. (Author/DI)