本教材由16章组成，每章按选读的作者命名，选读内容包括诗歌、短篇小说、散文、长篇小说节选、戏剧节选等。每一章包含“作家介绍”“作品选读”“能力提升训练”三大板块，其中，“作品选读”部分附有注释和参考译文。作者针对选读内容设计了两类问题，一类是提高理解能力的问题，一类是提高批判性恩维能力的问题。同时，针对两类问题编成答题要点，放在选读部分的最后。“能力提升训练”部分是通过阅读诗歌、名句摘录、作品选段等材料回答问题，能力提升训练的问题也编成了答题要点，放在一的最后。本教材的编写具有六大特点，一是代表性，二是针对性，三是欣赏性，四是批判性，五是实践性，六是人文性。本教材主要是针对民办本科院校和公立二本院校英语、翻译、商务英语专业学生而编写，也适合于报考英语及其相关专业的考研学生和广大英语文学爱好者。

Chapter 1 William Shakespeare
Selected Reading：Sonnet 18
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Chapter 2 Jane Austen
Selected Reading：Pride and Prejudice
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 3 John Milton
Selected Reading：Paradise Lost
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：The Second Coming
Chapter 4 Mary Shelley
Selected Reading：Frankenstein
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Emma
Chapter 5 Alfred Tennyson
Selected Reading：Break，Break，Break
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Kubla Khan
Chapter 6 Oscar Wilde
Selected Reading：The Importance of Bein g Earnest
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Pygmalion
Chapter 7 Matthew Arnold
Selected Reading：Dover Beach
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：My Last Duchess
Chapter 8 Jomo Kenyatta
Selected Reading：The Gentlemen of the Jungle
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Heart of Darkness
Chapter 9 Emily Dickinson
Selected Reading：Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：This Is My Letter to the World
Chapter 10 Arthur Miller
Selected Reading：Death of a Salesman
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Rip Van Winkle
Chapter 11 Robert Frost
Selected Reading：Birches
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：There Was a Child Went Forth Every Day
Chapter 12 Henry David Thoreau
Selected Reading：Walden
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Nature
Chapter 13 Wallace Stevens
Selected Reading：Anecdote of the Jar
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：The Red Wheelbarrow
Chapter 14 Ernest Hemingway
Selected Reading：A Clean，Well-Lighted Place
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：The Red Badge of Courage
Chapter 15 Sylvia Plath
Selected Reading：Ariel
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Chapter 16 Sandra Cisneros
Selected Reading：The House on Mango Street
Sharpen-Your-Ability Exercise：The Awakening
Bibliography