Oxford Companion to English Literature
The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature
(Paperback Edition) Handy Reference Book
This is a compact version of the 6th edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. The emphasis is naturally on British literature (John Galt is not listed as a character in Atlas Shrugged, but as a Scottish novelist). There is coverage of writers from the United States, Canada, Africa, the Caribbean and India.
Among the entries are:
- short biographies of novelists, dramatists and poets, and also a few philosophers (Swedenborg), historians, scholars, critics, biographers, travel writers, and journalists
- plot summaries and descriptions of poems
Other notable entries:
- literary and intellectual movements, genres, and critical theory
- figures in Irish mythology
- gay and lesbian literature
- literary societies, libraries, publishers, and even coffee houses
Topics that get two-page treatmen: Black British literature, science fiction, structuralism and post-structuralism, ghost stories, post-colonial literature, romantic fiction, spy fiction
No editorializing. They “describe and characterize rather than judge.”