The Macmillan Anthology of English Prose by Edward Leeson
This anthology is a one-volume introduction to the best of English writing from the Elizabethans to the present day. Including a wide variety of extracts, from Sir Philip Sidney on horsemanship and Aphra Behn on the noble savage to the novels of Jane Austen and Dickens, H.G. Wells and Kingsley Amis, the anthology traces the central development of the English literary tradition.