Product Description
From "Treasure Island" to "Trainspotting", Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature. In "Scotland's Books" poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpiece of St Columba's Iona - the earliest surviving Scottish work - to the imaginative, thriving world of twenty-first-century writing with authors such as Ali Smith and James Kelman, this outstanding collection traces the development of literature in Scotland and explores the cultural, linguistic and literary heritage of the nation. It includes extracts from the writing discussed to give a flavour of the original work, full quotations in their own language, previously unpublished works by authors and plenty of new research. Informative and readable, this is the definitive guide to the marvelous legacy of Scottish literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Style and the Natureof a Literature

Wonderful tales from medieval times right up to the present.The
development of Scottish literature is shown with a flavour that
offers a revealing look at the best of writing.

Magical fiction (sometimes supernatural) and maybe social with
linguistic stresses of Scottish society.All here in this book
displaying erudition and very readable in a pleasing well thought
out prose.There are idiomatic differences between the languages
of Scotland and England and these beautiful inflexions are very
imaginative, indeed.

Robert Crawford explains the rich heritage of Scotland's Books
with a marked intelligence and competence!

Dag Stomberg ... Read more

Product Description
This collection has been edited to reflect the changing nature of criticism and scholarship in relation to the Romantic period. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Challenging, Rewarding Essays by Distinguished Academics
Published in ten volumes, The Penguin History of Literature is a critical survey of English and American literature. Volume 5, The Romantic Period, is comprised of twelve independent essays authored by distinguished academics. These detailed, thought-provoking essays will appeal primarily to upper level students in history and English literature. David B. Pirie edited this collection as well as contributing the interesting essay on John Keats.

Seven chapters address the works of influential literary figures including Jane Austen, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Scholarly, detailed, semi-biographical essays do assume substantial familiarity with their poetry, prose and letters. However, the persistent reader is rewarded with a greater insight into the interplay of politics and literature during this turbulent period of English history.

Five more general chapters are devoted to analyzing political and social change:

Events Have Made Us A World of Readers - a thoughtful, detailed examination of the rapid growth and democratization of the reading public 1780-1830. Universal literacy, initially viewed as a harbinger of anarchy, was seen by the mid-nineteenth century as a precondition for political stability.

Politics and the Novel 1780-1830 - the novel, in 1780 considered the lowest of literary genre, was revitalized by the realization that fiction could be a powerful tool for influencing public opinion. A difficult chapter - I was unacquainted with the writings of period authors like Robert Bage, Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Jane West, Maria Edgeworth, Amelia Opie, and Thomas Peacock. Only the section on Sir Walter Scott was familiar ground.

Representing the People: Crabbe, Southey, and Hazlitt - popular liberties, popular will, and popular sovereignty were new, problematic concepts. This fascinating essay looks at how three writers very differently approached these new ideas.

Poor Relations: Writing in the Working Class 1770-1835 - The reading public was charitable to literary curiosities (an untutored muse, a Suffolk cottager, an orphan poet, a blind poet, a poetic shoemaker, etc.) provided that appropriate poetic forms, topics, and social norms were observed. Working class authors of revolutionary tracts rarely had access to book publishing.

Orientalism - a detailed (perhaps, overly so) examination of the influence of oriental culture on English Romantic literature and poetry, particularly as British colonialism expanded into India.

Suggestion: The appendix contains a useful Table of Dates (1770-1837), 26-pages in length. I recommend reading (not simply scanning) this intriguing compilation of historical events before studying the essays themselves.An extensive bibliography is also provided. ... Read more

Product Description
Rather than emphasizing William Soutar's role as a majorprotagonist of the Scottish Renaissance - a role which has gainedgreater recognition in recent years -, the author, in this study ofWilliam Soutar's life and work, has chosen to listen to the voice of agreat visionary searching for meaning and wholeness in a disunited andunstable world. Taking Soutar's philosophy of the Righteousness ofLife as a starting point, she traces his reflections on creativewriting, death, religion, pacifism and other related spheres andestablishes fully, for the first time, the width of this Scottishwriter's philosophic range. By drawing upon the treasure of Soutar'sprivate papers, she reveals a facet of his work which glows with theintense presence of his observations on concerns that are stillfundamental for our understanding of modern society and politics. ... Read more

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Margery Palmer McCulloch sees Scottish Modernism as both interacting with the intellectual and artistic ideas of European Modernism and responding to the social, political, and cultural contexts of Scotland. She builds her argument through close readings of the new poetry and criticism of the 1920s and the interaction of politics and literature in the 1930s. She concentrates on the reimagining of the Highlands, women writers' response to the changing world of the Modernist period, and the continuing impact of Modernism in the poetry of the 1940s and 1950s. She discusses Hugh MacDiarmid, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Neil M. Gunn, the Muirs and the Carswells, Marion Angus, Naomi Mitchison, Nan Shepherd, Nancy Brysson Morrison, William Soutar, Sydney Goodsir Smith, and Robert Garioch, among others.

Product Description
In Beyond Identity, thirteen of Scotland's best known poets reflect upon the theoretical, practical and political considerations involved in the act of writing. They furnish a unique guide to contemporary Scottish poetry, discussing a range of issues that include nationhood, education, language, religion, landscape, translation and identity. John Burnside, Robert Crawford, Douglas Dunn, Kathleen Jamie, Edwin Morgan, Kenneth White and others, together with such noted experimentalists as Frank Kuppner, Tom Leonard and Richard Price, explore questions about the relationship between social, economic and ecological realities and their poetic transformation. These interviews are set within the altered political context that followed from the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1999 and the potential of a renewed engagement with wider European culture.Attila Dósa is Senior Lecturer at the Department of English at the University of Miskolc, in northern Hungary. ... Read more

Product Description
From Treasure Island to Trainspotting, Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature. In Scotland's Books the much loved poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish imaginative writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpieces of St. Columba's Iona - the earliest surviving Scottish work - to the energetic world of twenty-first-century writing by authors such as Ali Smith and James Kelman, this outstanding account traces the development of literature in Scotland and explores the cultural, linguistic and literary heritage of the nation. It includes extracts from the writing discussed to give a flavor of the original work, and its new research ranges from specially made translations of ancient poems to previously unpublished material from the Scottish Enlightenment and interviews with living writers. Informative and readable, this is the definitive single-volume guide to the marvelous legacy of Scottish literature. ... Read more

Product Description

Combining thematic chapters with in-depth analyses of key English, Gaelic, and Scots poems, the volume addresses the central issues that respond to social, economic, and political changes, such as the influence of tradition (both national and international); the question of language; the rise of women's writing; the relationship between poetry and politics; and the importance of place to the Scottish imagination. Chapters reflect a broad range of interests while also offering detailed analyses of the ways writers broach their subject matter, including close readings of Edwin Morgan, Kenneth White, Aonghas MacNeacail, Kathleen Jamie, John Burnside, Robin Robertson, Mick Imlah, and Don Paterson, among others. Practicing poets and academics capture the range and quality of poetry in Scotland.

Product Description
This volume includes a selection of Scottish writing from one of its most innovative periods, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It ranges across literary genres from the controversial 'translations' of James Macpherson's Ossian poems to the prose polemic of Thomas Carlyle. It includes a wide selection from the poetry of Robert Burns and the short fiction of James Hogg, and the complete texts of Joanna Baillie's play De Monfort, Walter Scott's narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and John Galt's novel Annals of the Parish. Footnotes elucidate historical and other references, and Scots words are fully glossed. The introduction places these texts in the dynamic historical context in which this extraordinary literary flourishing occurred.Robert Irvine is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of books on Tobias Smollett, Walter Scott, and Jane Austen. ... Read more

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"Rapt in Plaid" combines reflection, criticism and memoir to illustrate a curious and long-lasting connection between Scottish and Canadian literary traditions. Examples drawn from genres including lyric poetry, narrative romance, war fiction, children's literature, sentimental fiction, thrillers, domestic novels and short stories link Canadian writers such as John Richardson, Isabella Valancy Crawford, Sinclair Ross, Hugh MacLennan, Margaret Laurence and W.O. Mitchell to Scottish writers such as Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle, J.M. Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson John Buchan and George Mackay Brown.

A line is traced in each chapter from directly imitative nineteenth-century Canadian writers to modern Canadian works where Scottish tradition persists, sometimes transformed and sometimes distorted. Lively biographical sketches and close analysis of particular passages by Scottish and Canadian writers are set in the context of multi-cultural, narrative, postmodern and postcolonial theories. This study illuminates the way Scottish ideas and values still wield surprising power in Canadian politics, education, theology, economics and social mores.

Although Professor Waterston's method is that of a literary historian, she frames each section in this new work with affectionate memories of reading, researching, and teaching Scottish and Canadian literature over a sixty year period. ... Read more

Product Description

These three volumes offer a major reinterpretation, re-evaluation, and repositioning of what is arguably Scotland's most important and influential contribution to world culture-its literature. Drawing on the very best of recent scholarship, this history contributes a wide range of new and exciting insights and offers a fresh interpretation of what it means to be "Scottish."

The first volume begins with a full-scale critical consideration of Scotland's earliest literature, drawn from the diverse cultures and languages of its early peoples. It covers the literature produced during the medieval and early modern period in Scotland, surveying the riches of Scottish work in Gaelic, Welsh, Old Norse, Old English, and Old French, as well as in Latin and Scots. The second volume deals with a period in which Scotland underwent some of the most dramatic upheavals in its history. It reveals how Scottish writers shaped the modernity of Britain, Europe, and the world. The third volume explores Scottish literature in all its forms and languages since the end of World War I, bringing together the best contemporary critical insights from three continents.

Product Description
Explore the canon of great writers.

In this incredible volume, English professor Jay Stevenson teaches readers everything they want—and need—to know about English literature. From Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Keats, to more modern figures like Nabokov, Salinger, Morrison, and Updike, this handy guide also includes information on periods, time frames, every type of criticism, the differences and similarities of the literature on each side of the Atlantic, and more.

—Fascinating, fact-filled writing that explores English literature as it is studied right now
—Terrific supplementary reading for AP English Lit students
—Helps readers explore and study fiction, plays, poems, and prose ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

mix up in service
Received the wrong product, but more importantly, received a name and home address as well as billing information for the person who ordered the book that I did receive.The seller had included a note on the packing slip that included an e-mail address to contact in case there were problems with the order, but the address was not in any kind of correct e-mail address form, so I had to contact them through Amazon.I had to ship the order back.When my actual order did finally arrive, it was in good shape, though.

Dripping In Liberalism
Let me start out by stating I purchased this book for the purpose of studying for the English Literature CLEP exam.

After reading this book cover to cover, it was not really what I expected. In fact, really the only "helpful" portions of the book were the sample literature readings. There are a few facts tossed here and there, but nothing beyond an extremely basic overview.

The main surprise about this book was how much of the author's personal opinion and point of view dominated the text. Is it really respectful to call people who disagree with homosexuality "homophobias"?

The other issue (though I expected as much) was the supposed intellect on the Bible and its interpretation. How was Adam and Eve having sex a sin? God created sex! The author contradicts himself when he compares a tale from the Canterbury Tales to Christ dying on the cross--with the tale being about a wife having sex "with a man on a tree." It's a disturbing interpretation, and certainly taken far, far out of context.

It's not that I didn't expect the author to express an opinion, but that opinion is very strong, woven throughout the entire book, and written as fact. Every book has some kind of opinion--this book just has one of the strongest I've ever come across.

Over all, I was disappointed with my purchase. The glossary and appendix had better info than the rest of the book!

Too many pieces missing
As a response to my brother's criticism of the Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, I tried to look for a basic overview of the subject that would be much more "balanced" to liberal eyes than the conservative PIG is.

However, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to English Literature" can best be regarded as a disappointment. A guide to English literature of its size ought I think to serve to introduce people to the entire history of English literature and attempt to define it as clearly as possible. Like many other books I have read, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to English Literature" fails in this respect. It is particularly problematic with American literature. Whilst the text proper does not discuss writers from America, the appendices do and this can best be described as ludicrous. The coverage of writers from other English-speaking nations has similar flaws. If you want to mention an Anglo-Indian writer like Salman Rushdie, one ought at least to mention all literature in the English language, no matter where it comes from.

Another problem is the apparent gap in the coverage of English literature during the early twentieth century, where there is a direct movement from circa-1900 modernism to late twentieth-century magic realism as if the literature of the middle twentieth century had no significance (I am anything but an expert, but at least there should have been some explanation if it is insignificant). The remainder of the historical section is covered quite well but could have been given more space.

Also, I find much of the early material discussing writing and how to write literature quite superfluous. Except for specialised genres like science fiction, fantasy and poetry, literature should not require this type of analysis because it is generally based on themes that relate closely to human experience and - again excluding the genres noted above - uses language that most people would understand without a course.

All in all, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to English Literature" is disappointingly superficial and incomplete.

A good introduction to English literature
This book won't save your life if you're studying at university,not in my case at least,but it is a good way of having an overall idea about English literature

A good investment
This book was very helpful and instrumental in reawakening my understanding, knowledge, and appreciation of English Literature.I purchased it as a study guide for Lit exams, it did the trick as I aced the exams.I really love the book and how easily and accessibly they present the subject. ... Read more

Product Description
Offering readers key women's writings from the eighth century to the present, this global and multicultural anthology includes selections written in English by women from Great Britain and the U.S. as well as Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Croatia, Ghana, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa.Organized thematically, the anthology emphasizes five important topics for women writers finding a voice, writing the body, rethinking the maternal, identity and difference, and resistance and transformation. Pivotal works of feminist theory by Woolf, Cixous, Showalter, hooks, Trinh, and others are also included.For those interested in women's literature. ... Read more

Product Description
For South Asians, food regularly plays a role in how issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and national identity are imagined as well as how notions of belonging are affirmed or resisted. "Culinary Fictions" provides food for thought as it considers the metaphors literature, film, and TV shows use to describe Indians abroad. When an immigrant mother in Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake", combines Rice Krispies, Planters peanuts, onions, salt, lemon juice, and green chili peppers to create a dish similar to one found on Calcutta sidewalks, it not only evokes the character's Americanization, but also her nostalgia for India. Food, Anita Mannur writes, is a central part of the cultural imagination of diasporic populations, and "Culinary Fictions" maps how it figures in various expressive forms. Mannur examines the cultural production from the Anglo-American reaches of the South Asian diaspora. Using texts from novels - Chitra Divakaruni's "Mistress of Spices", and Shani Mootoo's "Cereus Blooms at Night" - to cookbooks such as Madhur Jaffrey's "Invitation to Indian Cooking" and Padma Lakshmi's "Easy Exotic", she illustrates how national identities are consolidated in culinary terms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Beautifully written and thought provoking.
Anita Mannur's book Culinary Fictions opens one's mind in exploring the representation of South Asian food and the discourse surrounding it in relation to South Asian communities all over the world. Deftly weaving in discussions of everything from episodes of Sex in the City and the film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle to Jhumpa Lahiri's novels and short stories and Padma Lakshmi's television appearances, Mannur's readings impress the reader with both their range and her ability to place familiar objects in fresh, new, and thought provoking contexts. While this is a book for academic readers, Mannur steers clear of jargon and invites the reader through beautifully rendered prose. Her discussions should be of interest to anybody interested in food, media studies, South Asian culture in the diaspora, Asian-American Studies and literature, and immigration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Horse's Mouth
An excellent book for anyone who wants to learn about the beliefs and values of Highlanders. The book is a collection of songs in Gaelic with good translations and some tunes. There are historical notes and a shortbiography for each poet. The songs,all contempory, deal with the Rebellionof 1745; the songs of Alexander MacDonald in particular show the progressof rebellion; his early poems were meant to stir up support for the risingand the later ones to keep up the courage of those involved. There aresongs in praise of the tartan plaid, of the Highland clans and 'BonniePrince Charlie'. A great book for the serious academic as well as theromance novelist or Celtic musician.

The best and only work of its type!
a Charadean (Friends); For those with the Gaelic, native speakers or learners, or those merely interested in Gaelic music and history, this book serves as a wealth of information. Not only did the late, great Dr. Campbell put forth a magnificent volume of poetry, but an extremely important and generally overlooked primary source for those interested in the Jacobite period in general and the '45 in particular. For only here can be found the ideas and beliefs of the most important people in the Jacobite struggle - the Gaelic people themselves.Regardless of one's political viewpoint, it must be recognized that it is what the contemporary Gaels themselves thought and felt that is central to an understanding of why these people rose not once, but four times in sixty years, in an effort to restore the dynasty they viewed as the only rightful heirs to the throne. In these days of "debunking" historical revisionism, much of it generated by Whig (and latterly) Marxist/Leveller agendas, it is both interesting and important to see what the Loyal Clans of the Great Glen felt about the Cause. ... Read more

Product Description
Long the standard teaching anthology, thelandmark Norton Anthology of Literature by Women has introduced generations of readers to the rich variety of women’s writing in English.Now, themuch-anticipated Third Edition responds to thewealth of writing by women across the globe with the inclusion of 61 new authors (219 in all)whose diverse works span six centuries. A moreflexible two-volume format and a versatile newcompanion reader make the Third Edition an evenbetter teaching tool.

"As diversity itself has shaped the evolution of feminist criticism,from its early preoccupation with women'sshared experiences to its more recent absorption in the complex issues and assumptions informingEnglish-language texts by women writers ofdiverse geographical, cultural, racial, sexual,religious, and class origins and influences, sodiversity has shaped the revisions of thisanthology." —From the Preface ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Amazon fails again
While the text book is sound and an excellent (and required) addition to my Women's Lit course, I carefully perused each and every title until I saw the exact one required by my class. I chose it, ordered it. Almost a full month later, it arrives, and turns out to be THE WRONG [...] BOOK. This marks a special event in online purchasing for me: Amazon.com has now successfully FAILED with every single [...] order I have made to deliver either a) What I ordered, B) in a timely manner, and/or C) a quality product. [...]you, Amazon.com. You get no more chances from me.

Book
Book was still in package....so it was in great condition. It was delivered in an adequate time as well

This is educational and interesting.
This book was required for my college course.Even so, it is surprisingly worth reading for those interested in women authors and their works. It has a sampling of most eras, including modern.It also includes a mini-bio of each author. It includes excerpts from novels, short stories, essays, speeches, and poems.

Great service, fast delivery
I ordered a set of books and the price was great and really fast delivery.Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (Boxed set, Volumes 1 and 2)

VERY Happy!
Was shipped insanely fast, I think maybe a day? But anyway, just in time for the semester to start on Monday! Thanks again Amazon! ... Read more

Product Description
This book offers an original interdisciplinary analysis of the relations between myth, identity and social reality, involving elements of narratology theory, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology and social theory, harnessed to support an argument firmly located in the area of literary criticism. This analysis yields a fairly extensive reinterpretation of the concept of myth, which is applied to the examination of the relationship between narrative and social reality as represented in texts by contemporary Scottish and Irish women writers. The main theoretical sources are Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of heteroglossia, Jacques Derrida's theories of citationality and Judith Butler's theories of subjectivity. The analysis framework developed in the book uses these theories to create a new way of understanding how literary texts change readers' worldviews by enticing them to accept alternative possibilities of cultural expression of identity and social order. The texts analysed in this book reconfigure naturalised stories that have become normative and constraining in conveying identities and visions of legitimate social orders. The book's focus on feminine identities places it alongside feminist analyses of reconstructions of fairy tales, myths or canonical stories that establish what counts as legitimate feminine identity. Studied here for the first time together, the writers whose texts form the interest of this book continue the revisionist work begun by other women writers who engage with the male generated literary, philosophical and humanist tradition. They share a view of narratives as tools for continually negotiating our identities, social worlds and socialisation scenarios. While the high-level theoretical discourse of the first part of the book requires specialised knowledge, the second part of the book, offering close readings of the texts, is both lively and accessible and should engage the interest of the general reader and academic alike. This book is written for all those who are interested in the power words have to hold sway over our inner and outer (social) worlds. ... Read more

Product Description
A survey of prose, poetry, and drama from the Restoration to the beginning of the nineteenth century.Treats major authors in depth but also includes lesser but important writers to give a completer picture of the century. ... Read more

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The first edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature, edited by Sir Paul Harvey, was published in 1932, and quickly established itself as the standard source of reference for scholars, students, and general readers alike. In 1985, under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, the text was thoroughly and sensitively revised to bring it up to date.

The sixth edition, published in 2000, was extensively revised, expanded, and updated. Almost 600 new entries covered new writers, genres, and issues, and existing entries were reworked to incorporate the latest scholarship. In addition to the extensive coverage of writers, works, literary theory, allusions, and characters, there are sixteen featured entries on key topics including black British literature, fantasy fiction, and modernism. The Companion remains an unrivaled work that places English literature in its widest context: no other book offers such extensive exploration of the classical roots of English literature, and the European and non-European works and writers that have influenced its development.

The sixth edition has now been revised to ensure that it remains absolutely up to date: the invaluable appendices - the chronology, and lists of winners of major literary awards - have been updated, as have many of the entries. Informed by the latest scholarly thinking, and comprehensively cross-referenced to guide the reader to topics of related interest, the Companion retains its position as the best guide to English literature available.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Oxford Companion to English Literature
This reference book provides a comprehensive guide to English literature. Authors, book titles and characters from novels are included and the coverage of literature and quality of entries are excellent and its layout very good, but not every author is included, particularly with regard to new authors (writing within the last 10 years or so) and authors of television plays, series etc.However there is no immediate rival to this book, but I cannot award it 5 stars as not every author is included and some omissions are peculiar (eg Patricia Wentworth, although a pseudonym for Dora Amy Elles, is not included).

A handy if heavy friend!
A wonderful resource and superbly edited by Ms Drabble to not only meet the founding principles of this work (which first appeared in the 1930's) but also to consider the ever changing parimeters of what good and great literature is, a highly subjective notion at best.
The title almost does not do this work justice, it bestows it with a crusty old British acaedemic image. You almost imagine having to blow the dust off it before you can begin! But it is so much more rich and diverse than this and should not be avoided by those made nervous by it's title; it is not the untouchable work it sounds like it may be.
If literature is a love of yours, whether by author or genre, then you will find this brilliantly informative. Don't be put off by this being such an enormous book, it needs to be, it will become a dear and chubby friend in no time!

A worthy companion
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

A (Very Historical) Companion to English Literature
Disliking an Oxford Press book makes me feel like a heretic. The majority of their Companion books are superb, remarkably concise yet thorough works of scholarship. The English Companion is an unfortunate and surprising exception.

The entry for 'New Criticism' is an efficient example of the book's shortcomings. For one thing, there's a laundry list of authors, dates, and books but very little is said of the IDEAS that characterize New Criticism. The entries are generally hamstringed by a focus on the sociopolitical and historical aspects of writers and works. The effort is laudable but inappropriate and uneconomical for a reference work. In its most extreme form, the historical emphasis goes into bizarre detail about an author's upbringing -- is it really necessary that we know where an author went to grade school and when? Entries love to entertain tales of writers' deaths and and of their insignificant travellings.I often felt as though I were reading minibiographies.

One will also notice, in the case of 'New Criticism', the absence of any mention of the 'organic'. This is ridiculous and indicative of the book's lack of attention to concepts as such. There is a non-cross-referenced mention of 'organic' under Coleridge, yet even there it is only mentioned as one of his ideas, not in terms of what the theory tried to say. I would compare it to someone's asking, 'What does X mean?' This book's reply: 'X was one of so-and-so's ideas'. Too often, the response ends there.Literary theory entries are usually on the thin side, though the deconstruction essay is solid.However, even in the longest lit theory essays there is more of an emphasis on people and movements -- far less on ideas.

Along with the lack of depth (or conceptual emphasis), there's little sense of the overall significance of ideas, works or characters (ironic given the attempts at a social-historical approach): Caliban is mentioned in the Tempest entry, and even gets his own paragraph elsewhere, but there's nothing about his character as it's been re-elaborated and re-invented by a long tradition of English writers (Auden, Browning, Joyce, and Wilde for starters). There's nothing about Caliban's portrayal in that tradition, nor mention of Caliban's mirror, etc. Under 'hubris' (which is found, in turn, under a terse account of 'the Poetics'), there's nothing about Icarus, nor is there anything about hubris as a specific theme in so many works.

Speaking of hubris, it's baffling to me that Drabble's entry is longer than either Hill's or Heaney's. The general editor would have been better off focusing more of her energy on other writers: that expansive babbling space could have been put to stronger use had a more thorough background been given on either of those poets, among others.

Readers seeking to understand why an author alludes in his work to a character or poet will be little helped by nebulous terms like 'icily poised' or 'sensuously textured', which are more suggestive of gastronomic, rather than literary, criticism. To my mind a reference's primary function should be to offer a quick source of the 'essentials' of a book or of a writer's ideas, an understanding of which would illuminate one's reading of the alluding work. While I appreciate that entries shy away from 'this or that' critiques or strict (canonical) interpretations, giving lists of facts does an injustice to the works themselves and to the way these works have been interpreted by others. (Believe it or not, people CAN come to their own conclusions even after being introduced to an opinion.)

The book's scope is appropriate to literature, as literature tends to allude to so many disparate disciplines. But if one were truly trying to give an encyclopedic account of literature, the book would have to be much bigger. In this case, specialization suffers. I would have preferred a much more focused account of 'literature' as such; I'd then supplement this with other references focused, for example, on English history. One gets the sense that too many entries end up attenuated in this book.

On the positive side the plot summaries are strong and more nuanced, though many entries are badly written (full of odd, obscuring, convoluted syntax). Again, good editorship would have recognized this.

The book primarily succeeds as an enervated survey.Nevertheless, readers will occasionally happen upon some interesting, well-summarized topics.

I'm going to check out the Cambridgean counterpart to the Oxford Companion, and I'm hoping it will give a more in-depth account of ideas and themes. The other Oxford Companions are, however, truly amazing works and deserve a close look.

very good refrence
An excellent resource of information about English works of art ... Read more