This volume offers a description of early modern habits of writing and reading, of publication and stage performance, and of political and religious writing. It gives an introduction to early modern English literature for students and general readers. It considers the ways in which early modern writers construct the past, recover and adapt classical genres, write about people and places, and tackle religious and secular controversies. It is illustrated with a profusion of excerpts from early modern texts. Writers represented include More, Erasmus, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton, as well as less well known authors.