Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Illustrations Chronology INTRODUCTION - Albion Patterns of Eternity CHAPTER 1 - The Tree CHAPTER 2 - The Radiates Old English CHAPTER 3 - Listen! CHAPTER 4 - Why Is a Raven Like a Writing Desk? CHAPTER 5 - A Rare and Singular Bede CHAPTER 6 - The Song of the Past CHAPTER 7 - The Lives of Others CHAPTER 8 - A Land of Dreams CHAPTER 9 - A Note on English Melancholy CHAPTER 10 - The Rolling Hills CHAPTER 11 - It Rained All Night CHAPTER 12 - The Prose of the World CHAPTER 13 - The First Initials CHAPTER 14 - Anglo-Saxon Attitudes Middle English CHAPTER 15 - The Alteration CHAPTER 16 - He Is Not Dead The Piety of England CHAPTER 17 - Faith of Our Fathers CHAPTER 18 - Old Stone CHAPTER 19 - Part of the Territory The Poetry of England CHAPTER 20 - A Song and a Dance CHAPTER 21 - Fathers and Sons CHAPTER 22 - The Foolish Giant Solitaries and Recusants CHAPTER 23 - The Mysterious Voice CHAPTER 24 - The Inheritance Women and Silence CHAPTER 25 - The Female Religion A Renaissance CHAPTER 26 - But Newly Translated CHAPTER 27 - The Italian Connection Mungrell Tendencies CHAPTER 28 - A Short History of Shakespeare CHAPTER 29 - And Now for Streaky Bacon Antiquarianism and English History CHAPTER 30 - Among the Ruins CHAPTER 31 - The Conservative Tendency CHAPTER 32 - A Short History Lesson In the English Tradition CHAPTER 33 - The Song of the Sea CHAPTER 34 - A Brief Excursion CHAPTER 35 - A Miniature CHAPTER 36 - I Saw You, Missis An English Bible CHAPTER 37 - In the Beginning Cockney Visionaries CHAPTER 38 - London Calling A Wealth of Characters CHAPTER 39 - An Essay on the Essay CHAPTER 40 - The Hogarthian Moment CHAPTER 41 - Some Eminent Novelists CHAPTER 42 - A Character Study CHAPTER 43 - The Fine Art of Biography Women and Anger CHAPTER 44 - Femality and Fiction Melodrama CHAPTER 45 - Blood and Gore CHAPTER 46 - Ghosts Philosophy, Mockery and Learning CHAPTER 47 - Practice Makes Perfect CHAPTER 48 - Prolix and Prolific CHAPTER 49 - Some More Dunces Green England CHAPTER 50 - The Secret Garden Looking Backwards CHAPTER 51 - Forging a Language CHAPTER 52 - The Romantic Fallacy CHAPTER 53 - English Music EPILOGUE - The Territorial Imperative Notes Acknowledgments Bibliography About the Author Also by Peter Ackroyd Copyright Page For Murrough O’Brien Illustrations “Trees V: Spreading Branches,” 1979, by Henry Moore (Tate, London 2002) Twelfth-century spiral markings, church of St. Laurence Pittington, County Durham (Peter Burton and Harland Walshaw) Ornamental page with the beginning of the Gospel according to John, from the Lindisfarne Gospels (AKG/British Library) Photograph of Charles Dickens dreaming, 1861, by John and Charles Watkins (National Portrait Gallery, London) Stone portrait of John Donne in his shroud, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London (London UK/Bridgeman Art Library) Ornamental page with monogram from the Lindisfarne Gospels (AKG/British Library) “Sir Bedivere throws the sword Excalibur into the water.” Manuscript illumination, early fourteenth century (AKG/British Library) Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII (National Portrait Gallery, London, loan, courtesy of private collection) Queen Victoria and Prince Albert dressed as Queen Guinevere and King Arthur, at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842, by Edwin Landseer (from the Royal Collection by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen) “Figure of Guinevere,” circa 1858, by William Morris (Tate, London 2002) “Guenever”: illustration to the Arthurian legend, by David Jones (Tate, London 2002) “Babooneries”: photographs by Peter Burton/Harland Walshaw and a selection of details from the Luttrell Psalter, c. 1340 (AKG/British Library) The Chapter House of Wells Cathedral (Peter Burton and Harland Walshaw)