Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth (Paperback)

~ (Author) "This creature is described in an erudite work on Malay witchcraft by Iturvuru (1937)..." (more)
Key Phrases: nursery bogie, semisupernatural beings, wierd noises, United States, Native American, Fearsome Critters (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

There are three criteria for inclusion in this near-comprehensive reference work on a relatively narrow aspect of folklore: the creature cannot be divine, it must be a supernatural being from mythology, legend, folklore, or classic literature, and it may be a cryptozoological or symbolic being, such as a heraldic beast. Although various other sources treat giants, monsters, and mystery animals, none seems to cover them all at once, and this work's inclusion of the symbolic element appears to be unique. Entries give basic descriptions of each creature as well as its activities, region, culture, and historical period, and each entry is both cross-referenced and referenced to a selected bibliography. Appendixes categorize beings under country or region as well as such headings as "Beings Associated with Catastrophe." While works as modern as J.R.R. Tolkien's are cited, the Harry Potter series is not, though several monsters described here are present in J.K. Rowling's books. Perhaps Rose (Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes, and Goblins) does not consider Potter classic literature, but for a current reference work, this may soon prove a serious oversight. Recommended for public and school libraries where similar references are used.DKatherine K. Kaigler-Koenig, Ellis Sch., Pittsburgh, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! have nothing on Rose, at home in a thicket of menacing creatures. -- Choice

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393322114
• ISBN-13: 978-0393322118
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #116,560 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really fun text, August 16, 2002

By	"ignum_eternum" (Knoxville, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews

Books of this type are nothing new. There are probably dozens of encyclopedia-style texts out there dealing with magical creatures and mythical beings, but this one is easily one of the more enjoyable volumes I've had the pleasure of reading. As has been pointed out in another review, this is not a book for those who are longing for visuals over text. This is not one of Froud's Fairy books or one of the Gnome texts. As fun as those books are, there is a heavy if not predominate focus on their original illustrations. Carol Rose's book is focused instead on textual descriptions and summaries. There are plenty of great illustrations in the book, mostly woodcuts from Rose's own private collection, but these are not the key focus of the book. But I highly recommend this to anyone who wants a good, searchable reference guide to creatures of myth and magic.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy happy joy joy!, November 9, 2004

By	Orion Sandstorrm - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth (Library Binding)

I am madly in love with this book. I have been looking for a book like this since I was old enough to read. I've read several dozen monster encyclopedias. This book is very similar to "The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were," except that everything that Never Were did wrong, THIS book did right! You can actually find what you're looking for in this book!

This book does NOT make things up as it goes along. It does not mix the author's opinions with ancient opinions; its voice is neutral, but not dry. It does not contain illustrations which are irrelevant to the text. It is not messy in its layout- everything is perfectly organized. The bibliography is truly perfect, and is referred to constantly.

This book does indeed cover giants, monsters, and dragons; and it also covers a lot of gods, spirits, undead, goblins, fictional famous people, and so on. It covers ALL the mythologies of the world, concentrating on them equally. Most books like this will, say, tell you all about European mythics at great length, but only touch briefly on Thunderbird or Rainbow Snake, often the sole representatives of the entire continent they come from, and all their fascinating brothers are neglected completely. This book doesn't mix in movie monsters with the ancient ones (as some books do) although there are some fairly recent entities listed, such as Paul Bunyan. Rather than using modern illustrations drawn by an illustrator who is clueless about how the monster is supposed to look aside from the text description, and so produces something totally useless for reference, this book uses old illustrations, woodcuts and steel engravings- my only complaint may be that those illustrations are few and far between, and all grayscale, but it has a perfect bibliography, so you always know where to look for more- this book is designed to start you off, tell you where to go for more if you want to. Every single entry tells you which books it came from. It's full of some really seriously obscure creatures, too, so that's good.

As I was reading an entry about a creature which was born in the mythologies of an area near where I live, I thought to myself: "The only way this book could be any better was that if there was an index in the back that listed all the mythics by location! But of course there won't be, nothing is that perfect."

And lo and behold, I looked in the back, and it was THERE. As a counterpoint to the fully indexed alphabetical listing of all the monsters, the appendixes in the back list all the monsters by category, so you may look them up that way. There are category listings such as Thailand, or United States Native. And then there are category listings for type of monster, such as "beings that are horses or part horse," or "dragons- occidental." And so on. You can seriously find whatever you're looking for in this book, and there's plenty of it.

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantabulous!, January 2, 2002

By	John J Clements (FPO, AP USA) - See all my reviews

Carol Rose has done it again! The companion to her much-acclaimed Spirits, Faeries, Gnomes, and Goblins: an Encyclopedia of the Little People, Giants, Monsters, and Dragons provides the same thorough lexicon of the fantastic. More of less everything her previous book left out (ie. the large mythical creatures) that I complained about in my review of the said book, this book covers. Got a question on Qanekelak? Wondering about Wendigo? Tired of asking about Asipatra? Just plain curious about the Cockatrice? Well this well-documented book provides all the answers to the questions you might ask (and even answers to wuestions you might NOT have asked).

Not only does it include the traditional monsters, Griffins, Dragons, Ettins, etc. but it also includes folklore monsters from the American Old West (Fearsome Critters). Also, some of the more popularized monsters like Werewolves and vampires are carefully restrained within the pages of this book.

Anyone who's had bad experiences with so-called encyclopedias of beasts-that-aren't, need not fear this book. It is not, repeat, NOT a re-telling of old folktales. This book states the physical description of each creature, in a clear, concise manner, and goes about with helpful information about it. If your trying to find their countries of origin, simply turn to the back for a thorogh cross-index of all the creatures.

So why does it recieve four-stars from me? The artwork is sub-par. Rather than original pictures, which, I admit, can rapidly become tacky, she has chosen to reprint old drawings and wood-prints from ancient texts and her private collection. Not that I'm against old-school pictures, but I prefer a more modern-touch. Maybe I'm just being picky. Before this book, I had just purchased a Monster Manual, mistakenly believing that it was a serious encyclopedia of monsters. Carol Rose's book certainly throws the Dungeons and Dragons book on their tails in the way of sheer informative value, but falls rather short in the visual department.