In the past decade or so the study of English in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has established itself as an area of historical linguistics in its own right. This period has come to be known as Late Modern English and covers the period roughly from the reign of Queen Anne – the Augustan Age, that of Pope, Dryden and Swift – down to the end of the Victorian era at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is not a period of major categorial changes in English but of more subtle shifts in syntax and vocabulary and above all it is the time when pronunciation became a yardstick of acceptability in English society. The study of English in the late modern period is inextricably linked to the rise of prescriptivism, a phenomenon which has determined the attitudes to spoken language in present-day English society.

The validity of the late modern period has been underlined by a series of recent conferences which have taken place at the universities of Edinburgh, Vigo and Leiden. The range of topics dealt with at these conferences testifies to the interest of English scholars in the period. In particular the rise in grammar writing has been a focus, but also the spread of dictionaries and their use as authoritative works in language use.

The field of Late Modern English studies has been strengthened by a number of seminal publications in recent years.