Some of the most incisive writers on the subject rethink the relationship between Britain, England and English literary culture. It is premised on the importance of devolution, the uncertainty of the British union, the place of English Literature within the union, and the need for England to become a self-determining literary nation.

Introduction: Claire Westall and Michael Gardiner PART I: THE POLITICS OF ENGLISH INDEPENDENCE 1. Understanding the Post-British English Nation-State; Andrew Mycock 2. The Future of 'the Global Kingdom': Post-Unionism, Post-Nationalism and the Politics of Voice, Loyalty and Exit; Gerry Hassan 3. 'England is the country and the country is England': But what of the politics?; Arthur Aughey PART II: ENGLAND IN ENGLISH LITERATURE'S CANON 4. Romantic Englishness: Periodical Writing and National Identity after the Napoleonic Wars; David Higgins 5. 'Out-of way Asiatic disease': Contagion, Malingering and Sherlock's England; Pablo Mukherjee 6. A. J. Cook, D. H. Lawrence and Revolutionary England: Discourses and Performances of Region and Nation in 1926; Simon Featherstone 7. 'England am I ...': Eugenics, Devolution, and Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts; John Brannigan 8. Orwell's England and Blair's Britain: Warm Beer and Cold Wars; Willy Maley 9. Anticipating the Neoliberal Nation: Philip Larkin and the Displacement of Englishness; Graham MacPhee PART III: ENGLAND'S CONTEMPORARY LITERARY LANDSCAPE 10. J.G. Ballard's Traumatised and Traumatising Englishness; Philip Tew 11. England, Devolution and Fictional Kingdoms; Christine Berberich 12. Black English Writing and Post-British England; John McLeod 13. Devolution and Cultural Catch-Up: Decoupling England and its Literature from English Literature; Hywel Dix PART IV: ENGLISH LITERATURE AS BRITISH IDEOLOGY 14. English Literature as Ideology; Michael Gardiner 15. The New Rise and Fall of English Literature; Claire Westall Afterword; Anthony Barnett Bibliography