This lecture offers a survey of the main authors, works and genres of literature in Britain during the nineteenth century -- from Scott and Austen to  Hardy, Wilde and Shaw. The majority of sessions will be on the novel as the main literary form and the pirmary medium of entertainment in Britain during this time, but we will also look closely at 19th-century poetry and drama. The 19th century was a period of social change characterised both by rapid modernisation and tenacious conservatism, tensions that we will find in many of the texts to be discussed. The lecture will also pay attention to changes in the book market and place English literature in a wider social and cultural context.