JQuery :: Anchor Tags Not Working In IE

So I am creating a page with unordered lists housing a large range of numbers. I want to dynamically create anchor tags and write them in before each UL. In FireFox it works just fine, however; in IE7 the anchor tags won't work.

Here's my code:
$(document).ready(function(){
$("ul").each(function() {
var $li = $(this).find("li");
var $first = $li.filter(":first").text()
var $last = $li.filter(":last").text()
$(this).before('<a name="'+$first+'"> </a><span>' + $first + ' - ' + $last + '</span>');
$('#lists').prepend('<span><a href="'+$first+'">'+ $first +'-'+ $last +'</a> | </span>');
});
});