Representative Poetry Online includes 4,079 English poems by 618 poets from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the work of living poets today. It is based on Representative Poetry, established by Professor W. J. Alexander of University College, University of Toronto, in 1912 and used in the English Department at the University until the late 1960s. Its electronic founder and editor since 1994 is Ian Lancashire, who is a member of the Department of English, University of Toronto.