United Kingdom

=== Literature ===
{{Main|British literature}}
[[File:Title page William Shakespeare's First Folio 1623.jpg|thumb|upright|[[William Shakespeare]]'s [[First Folio]] from 1623; a copy is on display in the [[British Library]].]]
British literature includes literature associated with the United Kingdom, the [[Isle of Man]] and the [[Channel Islands]]. Most British literature is in English. In 2005, some 206,000 books were published in the United Kingdom and in 2006 it was the [[books published per country per year|largest publisher of books]] in the world.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Goldfarb, Jeffrey |date=10 May 2006 |title=Bookish Britain overtakes America as top publisher |work=RedOrbit |agency=Reuters |location=Texas |url=http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/499053/bookish_britain_overtakes_america_as_top_publisher |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080106093222/http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/499053/bookish_britain_overtakes_america_as_top_publisher |archive-date=6 January 2008}}</ref>

The English playwright and poet [[William Shakespeare]] is widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time.<ref>{{Cite web |title=William Shakespeare (English author) |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/537853/William-Shakespeare |access-date=26 February 2006 |publisher=Britannica Online encyclopedia}}; {{Cite encyclopedia |title=MSN Encarta Encyclopedia article on Shakespeare |url=http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562101/Shakespeare.html |access-date=26 February 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209154055/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562101/Shakespeare.html |archive-date=9 February 2006}}; {{Cite encyclopedia |title=William Shakespeare |publisher=Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia |url=http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Shakespeare%2c+William |access-date=26 February 2006}}</ref> The 20th-century English crime writer [[Agatha Christie]] is the [[List of best-selling fiction authors|best-selling novelist]] of all time.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 December 2005 |title=Mystery of Christie's success is solved |work=The Telegraph |location=London |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505799/Mystery-of-Christies-success-is-solved.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=14 November 2010 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505799/Mystery-of-Christies-success-is-solved.html |archive-date=10 January 2022}}{{Cbignore}}</ref> Twelve of the top 25 of 100 novels by British writers chosen by a BBC poll of global critics were written by women; these included works by [[George Eliot]], [[Virginia Woolf]], [[Charlotte Brontë|Charlotte]] and [[Emily Brontë]], [[Mary Shelley]], [[Jane Austen]], [[Doris Lessing]] and [[Zadie Smith]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ciabattari |first=Jane |date=December 2015 |title=The 25 greatest British novels |work=BBC Culture |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20151204-the-25-greatest-british-novels |access-date=29 December 2021}}</ref>

[[Scottish literature|Scotland's contributions]] include [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] (the creator of [[Sherlock Holmes]]), [[Walter Scott|Sir Walter Scott]], [[J. M. Barrie]], [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] and the poet [[Robert Burns]]. More recently [[Hugh MacDiarmid]] and [[Neil M. Gunn]] contributed to the [[Scottish Renaissance]], with grimmer works from [[Ian Rankin]] and [[Iain Banks]]. Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, was UNESCO's first worldwide [[City of Literature]].<ref>{{Cite web |year=2004 |title=Edinburgh, United Kingdom, UNESCO City of Literature |url=http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/creativity/creative-industries/creative-cities-network/literature/edinburgh |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130528152834/http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/creativity/creative-industries/creative-cities-network/literature/edinburgh |archive-date=28 May 2013 |url-status=dead |access-date=9 March 2015 |work=Unesco}}</ref>

Welsh literature includes Britain's oldest known poem, ''[[Y Gododdin]]'', which was composed most likely in the late 6th century. It was written in [[Cumbric language|Cumbric]] or [[Old Welsh]] and contains the earliest known reference to [[King Arthur]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Early Welsh poetry |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/language_poetry.shtml |access-date=29 December 2010 |work=BBC Wales}}</ref> The Arthurian legend was further developed by [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lang, Andrew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKJiPyyTevgC |title=History of English Literature from Beowulf to Swinburne |publisher=Wildside Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8095-3229-2 |location=Holicong, PA |page=42 |orig-date=1913}}</ref> Poet [[Dafydd ap Gwilym]] (''fl.'' 1320–1370) is regarded as one of the greatest European poets of his age.<ref>{{Cite web |year=2011 |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym |url=http://www.academi.org/dafydd-ap-gwilym-eng |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324034938/http://www.literaturewales.org/dafydd-ap-gwilym-eng |archive-date=24 March 2012 |url-status=dead |access-date=3 January 2011 |website=[[Literature Wales|Academi.org]] |quote=Dafydd ap Gwilym is widely regarded as one of the greatest Welsh poets of all time, and amongst the leading European poets of the Middle Ages.}}</ref> [[Daniel Owen]] is credited as the first Welsh-language novelist, publishing ''[[Rhys Lewis (novel)|Rhys Lewis]]'' in 1885. The best-known of the [[Anglo-Welsh poetry|Anglo-Welsh poets]] are [[Dylan Thomas]] and [[R. S. Thomas]], the latter nominated for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1996. Leading Welsh novelists of the twentieth century include [[Richard Llewellyn]] and [[Kate Roberts (author)|Kate Roberts]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://newsalerts.bbc.co.uk/1/low/wales/551486.stm |title=True birthplace of Wales's literary hero |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200316173733/http://newscdn.bbc.net.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/551486.stm |archive-date=16 March 2020 |url-status=dead |website=BBC News |date=5 December 1999 |access-date=28 April 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Kate Roberts: Biography |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/halloffame/arts/kateroberts.shtml |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120724104228/http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/halloffame/arts/kateroberts.shtml |archive-date=24 July 2012 |url-status=dead |access-date=19 February 2017 |website=BBC Wales}}</ref>

Irish writers, living at a time when all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, include [[Oscar Wilde]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Varty |first=Anne |title=A Preface to Oscar Wilde |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-89231-1 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=A9YFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 231–232]}}; {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Oscar Wilde |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia.com]] |publisher=[[Cengage]] |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/english-literature-19th-cent-biographies/oscar-wilde |access-date=10 December 2019}}</ref> [[Bram Stoker]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moss |first=Joyce |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780787637286 |title=British and Irish Literature and Its Times: The Victorian Era to the Present (1837–) |publisher=Gale Group |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-7876-3729-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780787637286/page/107 107] |url-access=registration}}</ref> and [[George Bernard Shaw]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holroyd |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/bernardshaw00holr/page/384 |title=Bernard Shaw, Volume 2: 1898–1918: The Pursuit of Power |publisher=Chatto & Windus |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-7011-3350-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bernardshaw00holr/page/384 384] }}; {{Cite web |title=G B Shaw |url=https://www.bl.uk/people/g-b-shaw |access-date=10 December 2019 |website=Discovering Literature: 20th century |publisher=[[British Library]] |archive-date=9 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809155152/https://www.bl.uk/people/g-b-shaw |url-status=dead }}</ref> There have been many authors whose origins were from outside the United Kingdom but who moved to the UK, including [[Joseph Conrad]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Middleton |first=Tim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Azd1f8NBpUoC&pg=PA159 |title=Joseph Conrad |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-415-26851-6 |page=159}}</ref> [[T. S. Eliot]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cooper |first=John Xiros |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XqmNjQzhwV4C&pg=PA111 |title=The Cambridge Introduction to T. S. Eliot |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-45790-3 |page=111}}</ref> [[Kazuo Ishiguro]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sim |first=Wai-chew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WcKLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT201 |title=Kazuo Ishiguro |date=2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-19867-1 |page=201}}</ref> Sir [[Salman Rushdie]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Salman Rushdie |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100433765 |access-date=10 December 2019 |website=Oxford Reference |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref> and [[Ezra Pound]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Campbell |first=James |date=17 May 2008 |title=Home from home |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/17/poetry3 |access-date=10 December 2019}}; {{Cite book |last=Nadel |first=Ira |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ECiGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA90 |title=Ezra Pound: A Literary Life |date=2004 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan  |isbn=978-0-230-37881-0 |page=90}}</ref>