This Timeline of British poetry contains the significant events in the history of English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry in the English language – mostly original publications of books – from the beginning until 2010. Due to the long history, books listed (not counting anthologies) have been limited to 2 per year.
16th century[]
1509: Stephen Hawes, The Pastime of Pleasure
1513: John Skelton appointed 1st Poet Laureate
- Gavin Douglas, Enneados [Aeneid]
1557: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey et al, Songs and Sonnettes (Tottel's Miscellany)
1562: Arthur Brooke, The Tragicall History of Romulus and Juliet
1563: Barnabe Googe, Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes
1567: Ovid, Metamorphoses (translated by Arthur Golding)
- George Turberville, Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets
1575: George Gascoigne, Posies
1579: Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender
1584: Thomas Hudson, The Historie of Judith
1586: William Warner, Albions England
1590: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Books I-III
1592: Henry Constable, Diana: The praises of his mistresse
- Samuel Daniel, Delia; with The complaynt of Rosamond
1593: Michael Drayton, Idea
- Thomas Lodge, Phyllis
- William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
1594: William Percy, Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia
1596: John Davies, Orchestra: A poem for dauncing
1598: Robert Tofte, Alba: The month's mind of a melancholy lover
1599: Samuel Daniel appointed Poet Laureate
- John Davies, Nosce Teipsum
17th century[]
1605: Michael Drayton, Poems
1609: William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets
1611: Homer, The Iliad (translated by George Chapman)
1612: Ben Jonson, Underwoods, in Works (1st folio)
1616: William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals
- Homer, The Odyssey (translated by George Chapman)
1622: George Wither, Juvenilia
1631: Francis Lenton, Characterismi
1633: John Donne, Poems
- Phineas Fletcher, The Purple Island
- George Herbert, The Temple
- Fulke Greville , Caelica
1634: William Habington, Castara
1640: Thomas Carew, Poems
- Ben Jonson, The Forest, in Works (2nd folio)
1641: George Wither, Halleluiah
1648: Robert Herrick, Hesperides
1649: Richard Lovelace, Lucasta
1651: William Davenant, Gondibert
1655: John Denham, Cooper's Hill (3rd edition)
1656: Abraham Cowley, Poems
1661: Alexander Brome, Songs and Poems
1663: James Howell Poems on Severall Choice and Various Subjects
1667: John Milton, Paradise Lost
1671: John Milton, Paradise Regain'd
1677: Nahum Tate Poems
1683: John Oldham, Poems and Translations
1689: Thomas Shadwell appointed Poet Laureate
1692: Nahum Tate appointed Poet Laureate
1696: Elizabeth Rowe, Poems on Several Occasions
- John Oldmixon, Poems on Several Occasions
18th century[]
1702: Mary Mollineux, Fruits of Retirement
1705: John Philips, The Splendid Shilling
1708: John Philips, Cyder
1709: Matthew Prior, Poems on Several Occasions
1713: Anne Finch, Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions
1714: Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
1715: Nicholas Rowe appointed Poet Laureate
1718: Laurence Eusden appointed Poet Laureate
1720: Homer, The Iliad (translated by Alexander Pope)
1728: Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
1729: Richard Savage, The Wanderer
1730: James Thomson, The Seasons
1733: Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
1737: Matthew Green, The Spleen
1742: William Collins, Persian Eclogues
- William Shenstone, The School-Mistress
1743: Robert Blair, The Grave
- Alexander Pope, The New Dunciad
1744: Mark Akenside, The Pleasures of Imagination
1748: James Thomson, The Castle of Indolence
1749: Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes
1750: Mary Jones, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse
1751: Thomas Gray, An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard
1755: A Collection of Poems by several hands (edited by Robert Dodsley)
1765: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (edited by Thomas Percy)
1768; Thomas Gray, Poems
1772: Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Poems
1776: F.N.C. Mundy, Needwood Forest
1777: Thomas Chatterton, Poems ... by Thomas Rowley and others
1783: William Blake, Poetical Sketches
- George Crabbe, The Village
1785: Thomas Warton appointed Poet Laureate
- William Cowper, The Task
1786: Charlotte Smith, Elegaic Sonnets, and other poems
1789: William Blake, Songs of Innocence
- William Lisle Bowles,Fourteen Sonnets
1790: Henry James Pye appointed Poet Laureate
1791: Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden
- Jane West, Miscellaneous Poems, and a Tragedy
1794: William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience
1795: Ann Batten Cristall, Poetical Sketches
1797: William Collins, Poetical Works (edited by Anna Laetitia Barbauld)
1798: Elizabeth Moody, Poetical Trifles
19th century[]
1812: Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
1815: Lord Byron, Hebrew Melodies
1816: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alastor; or, The spirit of solitude; and other poems
1817: John Keats, Poems
- Percy Bysshe Shelly, The Revolt of Islam
1818: John Keats Endymion
1819: Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (complete)
1820: John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other poems
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
1821: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais
1827: Robert Pollok, The Course of Time
1831: Charles Whitehead. The Solitary
1833: Rebecca Hey, The Moral of Flowers
1839: Philip James Bailey, Festus
1843: William Wordsworth appointed Poet Laureate
1849: Robert Browning, Poems: A new edition
1850: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, in Poems: New edition
- Sydney Dobell, The Roman
1855: Robert Browning, Men and Women
1856: Sydney Dobell, England in Time of War
1859: H.C. Beeching, In a Garden, and other poems
1862: Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market, and other poems
1863: Jean Ingelow, Poems (3rd edition)
- Coventry Patmore, An Angel in the House (complete)
1864: Robert Browning, Dramatis Personae
1866: A.C. Swinburne, Poems and Ballads
1877: Lewis Morris, The Epic of Hades
1878: A.C. Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, Second series
1879: Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia
- Stephen Phillips, Poems
1880: Emily Pfeiffer, Sonnets and Songs
- Charles Tennyson Turner, Collected Sonnets: Old and new
1883: Austin Dobson, Old World Idylls
1889: Mathilde Blind, The Ascent of Man
- Amy Levy, A London Plane-Tree, and other verse
- A.C. Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, Third series
1892: Alfred Austin appointed Poet Laureate
1896: Robert Bridges, Shorter Poems (Books I-V)
- Fiona MacLeod, From the Hills of Dream
1897: Lionel Johnson, Ireland, and other poems
- Henry Newbolt, Admirals All
1898: Thomas Hardy, Wessex Poems
- William Watson, Collected Poems
20th century[]
1909: Richard Watson Dixon, Poems
1911: Rupert Brooke, Collected Poems
1912: Walter de la Mare, The Listeners, and other poems
1919: Thomas Hardy, Collected Poems
1920: Wilfred Owen, Poems
- Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
1921: Edward Thomas, Collected Poems
1922: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
1930: Robert Bridges appointed Poet Laureate
1958: John Betjeman, Collected Poems
1972: John Betjeman appointed Poet Laureate
1982: Edwin Morgan, Poems of Thirty Years
21st century[]
2004: Edwin Morgan becomes 1st Scots Makar
See also[]
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