From The Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter, this rollicking romp through the world of literature reveals how writings from all over the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human.

What is literature? -- Fabulous beginnings : myth -- Writing for nations : epic -- Being human : tragedy -- English tales : Chaucer -- Theatre on the street : the mystery plays -- The Bard : Shakespeare -- The book of Books : the King James Bible -- Minds unchained : the Metaphysicals -- Nations rise : Milton and Spenser -- Who 'owns' literature? : printing, publishing, and copyright -- The house of fiction -- Travellers' tall tales : Defoe, Swift, and the rise of the novel -- How to read : Dr. Johnson -- Romantic revolutionaries -- The sharpest mind : Austen -- Books for you : the changing reading public -- The giant : Dickens -- Life in literature : the Brontèes -- Under the blankets : literature and children -- Flowers of decadence : Wilde, Baudelaire, Proust, and Whitman -- Poets laureate : Tennyson -- New lands : America and the American voice -- The great pessimist : Hardy -- Dangerous books : literature and the censor -- Empire : Kipling, Conrad, and Forster -- Doomed anthems : the War Poets -- The year that changed everything : 1922 and the Modernists -- A literature of her own : Woolf -- Brave new worlds : utopias and dystopias -- Boxes of tricks : complex narratives -- Off the page : literature on film, TV and the stage -- Absurd existences : Kafka, Camus, Beckett and Pinter -- The poetry of breakdown : Lowell, Plath, Larkins, and Hughes -- Colourful cultures : literature and race -- Magical realisms : Borges, Grass, Rushdie, and Mâarquez -- Republic of letters : literature without borders -- Guilty pleasures : bestsellers and potboilers -- Who's best? : prizes, festivals and reading groups -- Literature in your lifetime... and beyond.