Brewer's Anthology of England and the English

Rule Britannia! Here is England’s very essence, captured in an anthology of more than 1,500 quotes. Eccentricity, snobbery, war, and relationships with the rest of Europe all resound in a “parliament of voices” that ranges from Bede to Larkin, and includes traditional and Asian English. Arranged thematically (questions of identity, a touch of class), the words come from some of England’s finest writers. From the patriotic and laudatory to the dissident and choleric, it’s richly entertaining.