Frontmatter -- Preface -- Vorrede -- Contents -- Errata -- Chaucer and his Contemporaries -- The 15th Century and the First Half of the 16th Century -- The Elizabethan Period (including the reign of James I and that of Charles I to the outbreak of the Civil War). 1558—1642 -- The Period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth 1042—1660 -- The Period of the Restoration and the Revolution 1660—1702 -- First Half of the 18th Century -- Second Half of the 18th Century -- The 19th Century