Joseph Conrad was Polish , Robert Burns was Scottish , James Joyce was Irish , Dylan Thomas was Welsh , Edgar Allan Poe was American , Salman Rushdie is Indian , V. S. Naipaul is Trinidadian , Vladimir Nabokov was Russian . English literature is the literature written in the English language , including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England ; for example , Robert Burns was Scottish , James Joyce was Irish , Joseph Conrad was born in Poland , Dylan Thomas was Welsh , Edgar Allan Poe was American , V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad , and Vladimir Nabokov was Russian , but all are considered important writers in the history of English literature .