(1) Authors’ names appear in roman type; the titles of books are given in italics.
(2) Every author and book that is mentioned in the tables has already found a place earlier in this history. Reference to the index at the end will lead to further information.
(3) The chief use of each table is to provide a clear view of some aspect of English literature. To effect this a certain amount of rigidity is unavoidable in the classification. The reader should clearly understand that a greater elasticity of opinion is possible than appears in the tables. Caution, therefore, is necessary in the use of them.
| Date | Tale and Romance |
Essay | Novel | Miscellaneous |
| Pecock | ||||
| Malory | ||||
| 1500 | ||||
| Utopi | ||||
| Ascham | ||||
| Nash | ||||
| Arcadia | Arcadia | |||
| 1600 | Ford | Bacon | Hooker | |
| Overbury | ||||
| Bacon | ||||
| Burton | ||||
| Browne | ||||
| Boyle | Clarendon | |||
| Dryden | Milton | |||
| Temple | Behn | Dryden | ||
| 1700 | ||||
| Addison | ||||
| Defoe | Steele | Defoe | Swift | |
| Richardson | ||||
| Johnson | Fielding | |||
| Johnson | Goldsmith | Smollett | Burke | |
| Sterne | ||||
| Goldsmith | Gibbon | |||
| 1800 | Coleridge | Austen | ||
| Southey | ||||
| Hazlitt | Scott | |||
| Lamb | Lockhart | |||
| Marryat | Dickens | |||
| Lever | Thackeray | Ruskin | ||
| Borrow | Thackeray | |||
| Stevenson | Meredith | |||
| 1900 | Hardy | Stevenson |
| Date | Picaresque | Society and Domestic |
Historical | Didactic |
| 1500 | ||||
| Utopia | ||||
| The Unfortunate Traveller |
Arcadia | |||
| 1600 | ||||
| Head | ||||
| 1700 | Behn | |||
| Addison | ||||
| Defoe | ||||
| Richardson | ||||
| Fielding | Johnson | |||
| Smollett | ||||
| Sterne | Burney | |||
| 1800 | Austen | |||
| Edgeworth | Porter | |||
| Marryat | Scott | |||
| Dickens | Bulwer-Lytton | |||
| Borrow | Thackeray | G. P. R. James | ||
| Meredith | Thackeray | |||
| 1900 | Hardy | Stevenson | Pater |
| Date | Scientific and Didactic | Literary Criticism | Miscellaneous |
| 1500 | |||
| Apologie for Poetrie | |||
| 1600 | Bacon | ||
| Milton | Cowley | ||
| Dryden | Howell | ||
| 1700 | Locke | Temple | |
| Addison | Addison | ||
| Steele | Steele | ||
| Bolingbroke | Swift | ||
| Hume | Johnson | Johnson | |
| Goldsmith | Goldsmith | ||
| 1800 | |||
| Cobbett | Jeffrey | Hazlitt | |
| Coleridge | Lamb | ||
| Hazlitt | Thackeray | ||
| Carlyle | Froude | ||
| Macaulay | Stevenson | ||
| 1900 | Symonds |
N.B.—In this table the classification is often only approximate.
| Date | Plain | Middle | Ornate | Poetic |
| Mandeville (d. 1372) |
||||
| Malory | ||||
| 1500 | ||||
| More | ||||
| Fisher | ||||
| Ascham | ||||
| Nash | ||||
| Hooker | Lyly | |||
| 1600 | Bacon | |||
| Overbury | The Bible | |||
| Burton | Milton | |||
| Browne | ||||
| Walton | Hobbes | Jeremy Taylor | ||
| Bunyan | Dryden | |||
| Locke | Temple | |||
| 1700 | ||||
| Addison | ||||
| Swift | ||||
| Fielding | Goldsmith | Johnson | ||
| Burke | Macpherson | |||
| Cowper | Gibbon | |||
| 1800 | ||||
| Cobbett | Southey | De Quincey | ||
| Lamb | Wilson | |||
| Macaulay | Ruskin | Carlyle | ||
| Thackeray | Meredith | W. Morris | ||
| 1900 | G. B. Shaw |
N.B.—Some cross-classification is unavoidable in this table.
| Date | Tragedy | Comedy | Historical and Pastoral |
| 1500 | |||
| Ralph Roister Doister | |||
| Gorboduc | |||
| Kyd | The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth |
||
| Marlowe | J. Heywood | ||
| Greene | Lyly | ||
| 1600 | Nash | Shakespeare | Shakespeare |
| Shakespeare | Jonson | Jonson | |
| Jonson | Massinger | Fletcher | |
| Webster | |||
| Ford | |||
| Milton | Dryden | ||
| Dryden | |||
| 1700 | Lee | Congreve | |
| Addison | Steele | ||
| Johnson | |||
| Goldsmith | Home | ||
| Sheridan | |||
| 1800 | Baillie | ||
| Byron | Byron | ||
| Shelley | |||
| Browning | |||
| Swinburne | |||
| Tennyson | Wilde | Tennyson | |
| 1900 | G. B. Shaw | Swinburne |
| Date | Epic | Lyric and Ode | Narrative-Descriptive | Didactic |
| The Nut-brown Maid | Chaucer (d. 1400) | |||
| James I of Scotland | Lydgate | |||
| 1500 | Hawes | Hawes | ||
| Wyat | Sackville | |||
| Surrey | ||||
| 1600 | Shakespeare | Spenser | Drayton | |
| Donne | P. and G. Fletcher | |||
| Cowley | Herbert | |||
| Davenant | Carew | |||
| Milton | ||||
| Dryden | Dryden | Dryden | ||
| 1700 | Butler | |||
| Blackmore | Prior | Pope | ||
| Pope | ||||
| Collins | ||||
| Gray | Johnson | |||
| Cowper | ||||
| Burns | Crabbe | |||
| 1800 | Wordsworth | Coleridge | ||
| Keats | Scott | Shelley | ||
| Shelley | Byron | Byron | ||
| Tennyson | Tennyson | |||
| Browning | Tennyson | |||
| Tennyson | Browning | |||
| Arnold | Arnold | |||
| D. G. Rossetti | Swinburne | |||
| 1900 |
| Date | Allegory[241][242] | Satire[241][242] | Elegy[241] | Letters and Diary[242] |
| Lydgate[241] | ||||
| 1500 | Skelton[241] | |||
| Douglas[241] | Barclay[241] | Dunbar[241] | ||
| Dunbar[241] | ||||
| Lyndsay[241] | ||||
| Spenser[241] | ||||
| 1600 | Donne[241] | |||
| P. Fletcher[241] | ||||
| Howell[242] | ||||
| Milton[241] | ||||
| Bunyan[242] | Dryden[241] | Pepys[242] | ||
| 1700 | Evelyn[242] | |||
| Addison[242] | Swift[242] | |||
| Pope[241] | Lady M. W. Montagu[242] | |||
| Johnson[241] | Gray[241] | Gray[242] | ||
| Cowper[242] | ||||
| Goldsmith[242] | Burns[241] | |||
| 1800 | ||||
| Lamb[242] | ||||
| Byron[241] | Shelley[241] | Scott[242] | ||
| Tennyson[241] | ||||
| Tennyson[241] | Arnold[241] | |||
| Butler[242] | ||||
| 1900 |
| Date | Heroic Couplet[243][244] | Octosyllabic Couplet | Ballad Meter | Blank Verse |
| Chaucer (d. 1400)[243][244] | Chaucer | Numerous ballads | ||
| Sir Patrick Spens | ||||
| 1500 | Chevy Chace | |||
| Surrey | ||||
| Spenser[244] | Spenser | Marlowe | ||
| 1600 | Shakespeare | |||
| Wither[243] | P. Fletcher | Jonson | ||
| Cowley[243] | Milton | |||
| Cooper’s Hill[243] | ||||
| Milton | ||||
| Dryden[243] | Butler | |||
| Dryden | ||||
| 1700 | ||||
| Pope[243] | Swift | |||
| Thomson | ||||
| Percy | ||||
| Johnson[243] | ||||
| Chatterton | ||||
| Goldsmith[243] | Goldsmith | Cowper | ||
| 1800 | Coleridge | Coleridge | Wordsworth | |
| Keats[244] | Scott | Scott | Keats | |
| Byron[243] | Byron | Shelley | ||
| Tennyson | ||||
| Arnold[244] | Tennyson | |||
| W. Morris[244] | W. Morris | D. G. Rossetti | Browning | |
| Arnold | ||||
| 1900 | Swinburne[244] | Swinburne |
| Date | Spenserian Stanza | Ottava Rima | Rhyme Royal | Sonnet |
| Chaucer (d. 1400) | ||||
| James I of Scotland | ||||
| 1500 | Henryson | |||
| Sackville | Wyat[246] | |||
| Spenser | Surrey[245] | |||
| 1600 | Spenser[245] | |||
| Britannia’s Pastorals | Shakespeare[245] | |||
| Drayton[246] | ||||
| Milton[246] | ||||
| 1700 | ||||
| Thomson | ||||
| Shenstone | ||||
| 1800 | Wordsworth[246] | |||
| Keats | Byron | Byron[246] | ||
| Shelley | Keats | Keats[246] | ||
| Byron | Shelley[246] | |||
| Tennyson | Tennyson[246] | |||
| W. Morris | ||||
| 1900 | D. G. Rossetti[246] |