The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198661401 ISBN 13: 9780198661405

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1987

Synopsis

Based on the hugely popular Fifth Edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature, edited by Margaret Drabble and published in 1985, this new volume offers more than 5,000 alphabetically arranged entries on individual novels and plays; songs and poems; the lives and works of authors, poets, playwrights, essayists, philosophers, and historians; fictional characters; literary movements; legends; theatres; and periodicals.
_____This abridgement has sharpened the focus on the English-language literature of the British Isles, but there is still generous coverage of the literature of other countries (including, of course, the United States) and of the works of art, music, science, and other disciplines that have influenced or been influenced by literature. In adapting the parent volume, the editors have eliminated the most peripheral entries and have condensed many of the remaining articles (while retaining the clear and graceful style that characterized the original). At the same time, they have updated information in the entries on modern authors and works and have added several entirely new essays on a number of topics such as Parody, Anachronism, Autobiography, Heroic Drama, and Foreign Influences on English Literature. The result is a book that students and general readers will find indispensable.

About this title

About the Author

About the Editors:
Margaret Drabble is one of modern Britain's most distinguished novelists. Her books include The Middle Ground, The Realms of Gold, The Ice Age, and A Writer's Britain. Jenny Stringer was an assistant editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Fifth Edition and has since contributed to and edited several other reference works.

Review

Praise for previous editions:

"Ought to stand up well into the next century."--The Chicago Sun-Times

"A lively, informative volume."--Library Review

"A book which one turns to with constant pleasure, and which achieves the seemingly impossible task of being both lively and judicious at once. It is a book with much style and little prejudice."--Times Literary Supplement

"It is quite difficult to imagine, in this genre, a more useful publication."--Frank Kermode, The London Review of Books

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0198661401
• ISBN 13: 9780198661405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640
• Editor: Drabble Margaret, Stringer Jenny