The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English [Hardcover]

Ian Ousby (Editor), Doris Lessing (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521440866 | ISBN-13: 978-0521440868 | Publication Date: February 28, 1994 | Edition: 2

Substantially enlarged and updated for this new edition, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English is the definitive guide to the vast and extraordinarily rich heritage of literature written in English. It covers all the major novelists, poets and dramatists - from Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens to Conrad and to contemporary writers from all over the English-speaking world - Saul Bellow, Adrienne Rich, Les Murray, Wole Soyinka, and Janet Frame. More than 100 specialist contributors provide detailed biographical and critical articles not only on writers and their works. Substantial coverage is also given to such literary genres as popular fiction, science fiction, detective novels, and children's classics. All literary concepts and movements are described in detail. • Over 4,500 alphabetical entries, cross-referenced throughout • Includes all literature in English - British, Irish, American, Australian, African, Canadian, New Zealand, Indian and Caribbean • Illustrated throughout with over 115 photographs and line drawings

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

First published as The Cambridge Guide to English Literature in 1983, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English was last published in 1988. This new edition has been considerably revised. As with the previous editions, its scope extends beyond the United Kingdom and Ireland and beyond the traditional English-literature syllabus to include the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand.

There are entries for writers; individual works; literary groups or schools, such as the Bloomsbury Group; wider literary movements, such as Romanticism; schools of criticism, such as New Criticism; genres and subgenres; poetic forms; critical concepts and literary terms; and important theaters and magazines. Years of birth and death are provided for authors, as well as a few words classifying the authors' fields of endeavor, such as "poet" or "critic." Entries range in length from three or four lines to several pages. The entry Libraries, for example, is six pages in length and is subdivided into sections on libraries in the British Isles, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa and Asia.

This edition shows evidence of substantial changes. In the As alone, there are at least 12 new entries, including those for Australian poet Robert Adamson, American novelist Lisa Alther, Anthills of the Savannah, and "archetypal criticism." A small number of entries have been deleted; in some cases, entries have been made shorter by slightly revising the prose. Several entries, such as those for Chinua Achebe and Maya Angelou, have been completely rewritten; others, such as those for Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood, have been brought up-to-date. Other changes include providing more categories for authors (e.g., in the earlier edition Auden was described only as a poet; now he is described as a poet, playwright, and critic) and changing the way in which titles are listed (e.g., The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is now listed as Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of). Finally, many illustrations have been revised. The picture of Jane Austen has been dropped, a photograph of Chinua Achebe has been added, the photo of Kingsley Amis has been replaced with one more recent.

The only comparable single-volume guides are those published by Oxford University Press, such as The Oxford Companion to English Literature and The Oxford Companion to American Literature. Though they cover each national literature in more detail, the Oxford companions have not been as recently revised. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, like its companion, The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre, provides relatively current coverage with a multicultural view. It is recommended for most libraries.

Review

'... immense browsability.' Anthony Burgess, The Observer

'... an indispensable and indeed path-breaking guide'. The L. A. Times

'... conceptually generous ... on overall points Cambridge wins. Its breadth of vision is the chief reason'. The Guardian

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1067 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (February 28, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521440866
• ISBN-13: 978-0521440868
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.3 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,258,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Agatha Christie Meets Charles Dickens, November 29, 2002

By 

Robert Derenthal "bucherwurm" (California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Hardcover)

Those two authors share space in this magnificent reference volume on English Literature. The sturdy, oversized Guide presents over one thousand pages of information on authors, novels, poetry, drama, and literary terms. There are interesting biographies of prominent writers and obscure ones, from Mrs. Humphrey Ward to William Faulkner.

Good plot summaries are provided for a wide range of novels. If you are a fan of Anthony Trollope, you will find no less than twenty five of his books discussed. You have to be careful, however, if you are reading the plot of a book in order to decided whether or not you want to read it - the ending is always given away. The Cambridge Guide explores many literary terms: Meter; the Bloomsbury Group; positivism; and post-structuralism. There are also entries on Literary Journals - yes, the New York Review of Books is here as well as Granta.

The Cambridge Guide is written for the average layman and avoids academic jargon. I decided to try the entry on "deconstruction" as the extreme test of explaining difficult concepts. It's hard to say: either they failed the test, or I failed it.

This book has become one of my prized possessions, and I would have been willing to buy it at twice the price charged.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for teaching or taking college courses., May 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Hardcover)

The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English provides a wide array of supplementary reading material to accompany lecture notes or for students to grasp overall concepts of a particular work, author, or literary movement.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive reference book, August 10, 2007

By 

Pool Enthusiast (I am on the front porch reading The New York Times.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Hardcover)

Since I am the first to review this book, it is important that I let you know just how much information is in here.

Writers - poets, novelists, playwrights, theologians, philosophers, economists, naturalists, scientists, essayists, critics, and historians

Individual plays, poems, novels, and other works

Literary groups or schools - I.E. the Lake Poets, the Beats, the Movement, and the Black Mountain School

Wider literary movements - I.E. neoclassicism, Romanticism, modernism, and post modernism

Critical schools or movements - I.E. the New Criticism, structuralism, post structuralism, deconstruction, and ethical criticism

Literary genres - I.E. comedy, and tragedy, fable, farce and melodrama

Poetic forms and sub-genres of drama and fiction - I.E. acrostic, the elegy, the revenge tragedy, and the Gothic novel

Critical terms - I.E. metaphor, symbol, dialogism, intertextuality, and unreliable narrator

Rhetorical terms - I.E. anaphora, bathos, chiasmus, synecdoche, and zeugma

Theaters and theater companies - I.E. the Globe, the King's Men, the Federal Theater Project, and the Sistren Theater Collective

Literary magazines - I.E. The Quarterly Review and Punch, The New Masses, and Staffrider

So, as you can see, the list is quite extensive, helpful, and interesting.