Interesting Dates
1471 – first book printed in English,
completed in Cologne
Movable type (printing) established in England by not
later than 1486 (William Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde)
1492 – Columbus reaches the Americas
1509 – accession of Henry VIII
1516 – Sir Thomas More’s Utopia published, in Latin, in Louvain
1517 – Martin Luther starts what would become the
Reformation
1521 – founding of Cambridge University Press
1523 – William Tyndale begins to translate the Bible
into English
1530 – all vernacular Bibles condemned by Royal
proclamation
1534 – Frankfurt Book Fair
1534 – The Act of Supremacy made Henry VIII head of the
English church
1535 – first complete English translation of the Bible,
by Miles Coverdale, in Zurich
1535 – John Calvin published Institution of the
Christian Religion in which he explains the idea of the
elect and the damned
1540 – Great Bible published; first English Bible to be
officially sanctioned
1543 – Nicolas Copernicus’ De revolutionibus published;
considered to mark the start of the scientific
revolution
1547 – accession of King Edward VI
1553 – accession of Queen Mary
1557 – Stationers Company Incorporated
1558 – accession of Queen Elizabeth I
1559 – Pope Paul IV creates the Index of Prohibited
Books
1560 – Geneva Bible published (Calvinist)
1568 – Bishops’ Bible published “to counter the extreme
Protestantism of the Geneva Bible” (Norton Anthology of
English Literature, v.1.1003)
1577 – Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles published
1582 – The Gregorian calendar adopted throughout most of
Catholic Europe
1586 – Star Chamber decrees responsibility for licensing
print on the Stationers’ Company; the records kept are
called the Register of the Company of Stationers and are
now commonly referred to as the Stationers’ Register
1588 – defeat of the Spanish Armada
1591 – first three books of Spenser’s Faerie Queene
published
1596 – six books of projected 12 books of Spenser’s
Faerie Queene published
1603 – death of Elizabeth I; accession of James I and VI
1611 – publication of the King James Bible |
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Notable
English Authors
Prose writers:
Ascham, Roger: 1515 - 68
Harvey, Gabriel: 1550 - 1631
Sidney, Sir Philip: 1554 - 86
Nashe, Thomas: 1567 - 1601
Burton, Robert: 1577 - 1640
Walton, Izaak: 1593 - 1683 |
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Poets:
Spenser, Edmund: 1552 -
99
Herbert, Mary: 1561 - 1621
Daniel, Samuel: 1562 or 63 - 1619
Drayton, Michael: 1563 - 1631
Lanyer, Aemilia: 1569 - 1645
Donne, John: 1572 - 1631
Herbert, George: 1593 - 1633 |
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Dramatists:
Kyd, Thomas: 1558 - 94
Marlowe, Christopher: 1564 - 93
Shakespeare, William: 1564 - 1616
Dekker, Thomas: 1572 - 1632
Jonson, Ben: 1572 - 1637
Heywood, Thomas: 1574 - 1641
Webster, John: 1579(80) - 1634
Middleton, Thomas: 1580 - 1627
Beaumont, Francis: 1584 - 1616 |
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