The Oxford Companion to English Literature

Book Description

Based on the text of Margaret Drabble's 1995 edition, this sixth edition has been completely reworked and expanded. There are nearly 600 entirely new entries to reflect the new figures and issues of English Literature in the new millennium, and the existing entries have been extensively revised and updated to incorporate the latest scholarship. But this new edition remains faithful to Sir Paul Harvey's original vision of an authoritative work placing English literature from the Classical world, Europe, Latin America, and beyond. In addition to the extensive coverage of writers, works, literary theory, allusions, and characters, there are sixteen featured essay-style entries on key topics including black British literature, fantasy fiction, and modernism.

Customer Reviews:

A handy if heavy friend!.......2005-02-17

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.......2003-07-11

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.......2003-01-22

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.......1999-09-08

An excellent resource of information about English works of art

very good refrence.......1999-09-08

An excellent resource of information about English works of art

The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Oxford Companion to English Literature)

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An enyclopedia of English
Everything you need to know about literary terminology
The Oxford Companion to the English Language
The perfect bathroom book for English-language junkies.

The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Oxford Companion to English Literature)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 019214183X

Book Description

Language is the life blood of a culture, and to be interested in culture is in some sense to be interested in language, in the shapes and sounds of words, in the history of reading, writing, and speech, in the endless variety of dialects and slangs, in the incessant creativity of the human
mind as it reaches out to others. It is surprising then that until now there has been no major one-volume reference devoted to the most widely dispersed and influential language of our time: the English language.
A language-lover's dream, The Oxford Companion to the English Language is a thousand-page cornucopia covering virtually every aspect of the English language as well as language in general. The range of topics is remarkable, offering a goldmine of information on writing and speech (including
entries on grammar, literary terms, linguistics, rhetoric, and style) as well as on such wider issues as sexist language, bilingual education, child language acquisition, and the history of English. There are biographies of Shakespeare, Noah Webster, Noam Chomsky, James Joyce, and many others who
have influenced the shape or study of the language; extended articles on everything from psycholinguistics to sign language to tragedy; coverage of every nation in which a significant part of the population speaks English as well as virtually every regional dialect and pidgin (from Gullah and Scouse
to Cockney and Tok Pisin). In addition, the Companion provides bibliographies for the larger entries, generous cross-referencing, etymologies for headwords, a chronology of English from Roman times to 1990, and an index of people who appear in entries or bibliographies. And like all Oxford
Companions, this volume is packed with delightful surprises. We learn, for instance, that the first Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard later became President (John Quincy Adams); that "slogan" originally meant "war cry"; that the keyboard arrangement QWERTY became popular not because it was efficient
but the opposite (it slows down the fingers and keeps them from jamming the keys); that "mbenzi" is Swahili for "rich person" (i.e., one who owns a Mercedes Benz); and that in Scotland, "to dree yir ain weird" means "to follow your own star."
From Scrabble to Websters to TESOL to Gibraltar, the thirty-five hundred entries here offer more information on a wider variety of topics than any other reference on the English language. Featuring the work of nearly a hundred scholars from around the world, this unique volume is the ideal
shelf-mate to The Oxford Companion to English Literature. It will captivate everyone who loves language.

Customer Reviews:

An enyclopedia of English.......2001-03-28

People who love English already have a few books about advanced English usage, such as Fowler, and various style guides. I love Fowler; browsing its pages is a delight. The Oxford Companion (concise ed) is different. It's much more objective, and more encylopedic. There are entries on many important linguistic terms and concepts, excellent definitions of all the grammatical terms you'll come across (what does "dative" mean?), accurate surveys of areas like what is a dialect and what isn't, and the major threads of the academic debate are presented. Every letter of the alphabet is given its history. Curious about Scouse? About the impact of Samuel Johnson and his dictionary? What is the state of opinion about the Sapir-Whorfian Hypothesis? Estuary English? Regional dialects of North America? I can't believe I haven't had this book on my shelf since the moment it was published, and I'm busy making a list of people to give it to. This a breakthrough contribution to books about English.

Everything you need to know about literary terminology.......2000-09-22

This book is one of the better purchases I have ever made. Every time I need a detail about the English language, literary devices and terminology, or grammatical usage, this book always has a couple of paragraphs to explain what I need to know -- and usually a handful of cross references to related topics. All with the usual careful and thorough treatment you expect from Oxford. Every library should have a copy of this book.

The Oxford Companion to the English Language.......2000-01-08

There are many things I would like to know about the English Language, but too few of them are here. For example the history of English is disposed of in three pages. I should have liked to have seen 30 or so. To be sure there are other historical entries, though insufficient cross referencing. The chronology following the above entry is largely of English history rather than of language history. In place of these things are pages of information one could do without; trivia relating to broadcasting or editions of dictionaries. A topical index would have been nice. Every true philologist will nonetheless want this work.

The perfect bathroom book for English-language junkies........1996-12-17

"Companion" well describes this book. People who love English for its own sake can flip open any page and start reading, and soon find themselves cross-referencing through the whole volume (and learning a lot). Not as essential as a dictionary or style guide, but a way to broaden your understanding of this marvellous, terrifying language and its relatives. For true language junkies, this is not for the bookshelf, but for the bathroom, to read in bits at leisure.

The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre (Oxford Companion To...)

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The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre (Oxford Companion To...)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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History | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0195644468

Book Description

'...the first book of this kind on Indian Theatre...[T]here are few books on Indian theatre but none so authentic, so comprehensive and in this format [which is] simple therefore extremely useful...' -- Rajinder Nath, eminent theatre director and founder editor of Theatre India, journal of the National School of Drama 'This encyclopedic volume is the first of its kind in any language, covering all of Indian theatre. It is lavishly illustrated as well, with some rare and historic photographs selected from archival collections.' -- Shyamanand Jalan, Ex-Vice Chairman, Sangeet Natak Akademi 'A signal contribution to Indian theatre studies. This reference work is marked by its comprehensive scope and accuracy of detail. The volume presents a wealth of new information for both students and researchers.' -- Kathryn Hansen, Specialist on Parsi threatre and Nautanki, and Professor of Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin '...an important project.' -- Roshan Alkazi, art historian and Director, Art Heritage, Delhi ''Ananda Lal is one of India's leading critics and scholars of performance.' -- Richard Schechner, expert on Indian culture and Professor of Performance Studies, New York University The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre is the first reference work embracing both rural and urban modes of Indian theatre spanning its entire history of over 2000 years. This accessible and comprehensive volume consists of 750 entries encompassing forms and personalities across India geographically and historically, in twenty-two languages, according to their contribution to the tradition. Splendidly illustrated, it includes around 270 black and white illustrations that complement the entries written by specialists and luminaries of the Indian theatre scene. In keeping with the highest standards of international reference publishing, the eidtor has compiled and edited this material from 63 contributors. The threatre defined here spans not just co n ventional proscenium drama, and devotional and secular rural performing genres, but also musical forms such as Kirtan, dance threatre such as Kathakali, and oral narrative such as Katha Kalakshepam, all of which contain theatre's most fundamental element: acting. The Companion has three broad types of entries: the general, offering a conceptual analysis of a wide canvas on topics such as Cinema, Dance, Martial Arts, Mime, Music, Puppetry, Ritual, an d Theory . The se cond consists of longer overviews according to linguistic regions, for example Punjabi theatre or Marathi threatre. The third category mainly covers brief, factual entries about important individuals, groups, organizations, and movements. The Companion is meant for a general readership across the world, along with all those involved in the field of theatre, as well as researchers and students, for whom detailed bibliographies have been included. Contributors: Param Abichandani Pratibha Agrawal Nissar Alla na C Annamalai Sucharita Apte Lokendra Arambam V Arasu Devajit Bandyopadhyay Hasmukh Baradi Ramdas Bhatkal Kulada Kumar Bhattacharjee Dinkar J Bhojak Zarin Chaudhuri Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry Hemant Kumar Das Sisir Kumar Das Birendranath Datta Sudhanva Deshpande Maneesha Dixit Kalyani Ghose Tejwant Singh Gill Shanta Gokhale Sameera Iyengar Kirti Jain Nemichandra Jain Ramdeo Jha Akshara K V Dr Kamlesh Anuradha Kapur Sunil Kothari P Narayana Kurup Kalamandalam Govindan Kutty Swapan Majumdar Javed Malick Kamalakar Nadkarni Arun Naik Rajeev Naik Basavaraj S Naikar V Pamda Goverdhan Panchal Maya Pandit Jiwan Pani K Ayyappa Paniker Kavalam Narayana Panikkar Anand B Patil Dhirendra Nath Pattanaik K S Narayana Pillai Kironmoy Raha Indra Bahadur Rai Ashish Rajadhyaksha Mukta Rajadhyaksha Purna Chandra Rao Makhanlal Saraf Pabitra Sarkar M Nagabhushana Sarma Shafi Shauq Shubhada Shelke Ranbir Sinh Venkat Swaminathan O L Nagabhushana Swamy Kamalesh Datta Tripathi Ashoke Viswanathan

The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture

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An excellent overview
Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture

The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture

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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195506499

Book Description

This unique publication will provide a wide-ranging and intellectually challenging reference to indigenous Australian art, covering documented archaeologically traditions, art styles of the early contact period and the nineteenth century, and the development of the remarkably diverse contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practices that have attracted so much attention in recent years. The Companion will draw upon much original research on art and culture in remote Aboriginal communities, and on the emergence of Aboriginal art in urban institutions, markets, and exhibitions. Academics, graduates, and general readers will find concise and authoritative analysis on specific topics and regional traditions, unavailable even in specialist databases. Distinguished indigenous and non-indigenous scholars have been commissioned to write on individuals, artistic traditions, and historical shifts. The Companion will address more fully than any previous book important regional variations and historical developments in relation to colonial occupation and white Australian society over time. The Companion's primary emphasis is upon visual art, though survey entries on indigenous literature, theatre, and music among other areas provide a wider context. Essays, 'boxes' and 'voices' will be commissioned from well-established and emerging indigenous and non-indigenous writers. The presence of key historical figures such as Oodgeroo Noonucal and Kevin Gilbert will be heard through excerpts from previously published material or the use of archival sources made available for the first time. The visual component in the Companion is not viewed as simply an adjunct to or illustration of the written text, but is seen to be vitally important to its rationale. Visuality has contributed to the growing critical acclaim and widespread popularity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art nationally and internationally. Therefore extensive illustrations in colour and in black and white will be included to not only offer a critical understanding of objects and events but to acknowledge the key role visuality plays in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. The 400 illustrations will be extensively captioned and some of the entries will be read as visual storyboards, equally as important as the essays. Complementing this focus on visuality, there will be additional reference material: maps, diagrams, chronologies providing a comprehensive listing of the major exhibitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, locally and oveseas and guides to further reading.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent overview.......2001-08-23

Australian Aboriginal art is gaining international recognition, and rightly so. It is an art form driven by the culture of the artsists, and this book covers the traditional works of desert Australia, and also touches on more the more contemporary works of urban dwellers. These works are vibrant and alive, and the illustrations do justice to the richness of the work. The accompanying text is detailed and authoritative.

If you are interested in the art works of other cultures, or even art in its broadest sense, you will find many of the works presented in this volume to be quite different, even provocative. Others are as spectacular as any landscape known to the Western world.

This is an excellent introduction to a complex topic, and a worthy addition to any library.

Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture.......2001-06-15

This book was recently reviewed on the Sunday Arts program on ABC television in Australia. The book presents an authoratitive overview of the origins and development of Aboriginal Art and Culture in Australia.

It presents information in an easy to read format with enough detail to satisify most readers. It even includes sections on contemporary Aboriginal artists including Lin Onus. There are many colour illustrations of artwork to illustrate the narrative text.

Book Description

The first ever authoritative guide to Turner and all aspects of his art J. M. W. Turner is generally acknowledged not only as Britain's greatest painter, but as one of the finest and most original of all landscape painters. His long life and exceptionally large and varied oeuvre has created a body of art, and accompanying literature and primary sources, that are daunting and often inaccessible to the scholar and Turner enthusiast alike. The Oxford Companion to J. M. W. Turner, the first reference work devoted entirely to this artist, is an authoritative guide to every aspect of Turner's life, his art, his reception past and present, and the cultural, social, and political context in which he worked. Written by a team of the foremost Turner scholars in the world, the Companion presents the very latest information available, in a form that is both easy to use and enjoyable to read. Over 760 alphabetical entries offer * the fullest possible accounts of the private and public life of this baffling and secretive man - his family and friends, his mistresses and children; his interests and travels, patrons and associates, his will and bequest * details of his working methods; his stylistic development; the artists who influenced and inspired him, and those whom he influenced in turn; pupils and assistants; exhibitions during his lifetime, and the prices paid for his pictures * full coverage of the subjects and topographies depicted in his art, from Walter Scott's country house at Abbotsford to his panoramic views of Zurich * over 100 entries on the most important individual works and groups of works-oils, watercolours, and engravings, both exhibited and unexhibited * contextual coverage of contemporary artists, literary influences, political events and the issues of his day, from slavery to the Sublime * a complete account of past and modern Turner scholarship, and of important exhibitions, public and private collections, dealers and the market for his art today WITH: EXQUISITE COLOUR PLATES; CHRONOLOGY OF HIS LIFE AND TIMES; EXTENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY; LISTING OF PUBLIC COLLECTIONS WITH WORKS BY TURNER

Customer Reviews:

Lives up to its title.......2004-01-14

Although certain Oxford Companions have been flawed -- that to "Film" had a lot of errors; and in my minority opinion that to "English Literature" wastes far too much space on tangential matters -- most are informative, authoritative, and endlessly browsable. This new Companion to Turner belongs among them. With all the detail it offers about Turner, it's a substantial work and one that will only appeal to those who already have one or more collections of his works; it's understandable that this volume does not duplicate these; if it did, its weight and size (and unwieldiness) and price would rocket.

My only disappointment so far is admittedly peripheral: why does such a scholarly (and expensive) volume not come in the black (or immensely dark blue) cloth that OUP gives to most of its hardbacks?

WORDY AND FEW PAINTINGS.......2003-07-26

Maybe I am silly but if you are going to call a book a companion on a painter you should have plenty of paintings from each of the periods in his/her life to share with the reader. This book is primarily sound even exciting scholarship with a paltry amount of paintings.
If you are taking a graduate course in art history it is right on target however if you are madly in love with the art of this giant go elsewhere for your pleasure.

The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea

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Ahoy, you landlubbers!
Disappointment
An Encyclopaedia of Ships and the Sea.
Best possible reference
An indispensable guide

The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198606168

Book Description

The most comprehensive and authoritative reference book of its kind, The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea is a completely revised and updated edition of a classic volume that was first published in 1976 to huge acclaim, hailed as 'a beguiling book' (Daily Telegraph), 'marvellous' (The Times), and 'totally absorbing' (Financial Times). It brings together more than 2,600 entries on every imaginable aspect of the seas and the vessels that sail on them, from shipbuilding, yachting, diving, and marine mammals, to tidal power, piracy, and the literature and language of the sea. This second edition provides significant new material on topics that have come to prominence in recent times, such as oceanography and marine archaeology: key contributions on these subjects from marine expert Dr Martin Angel at Southampton Oceanography Centre include climate change, environmental issues, marine pollution, and marine wildlife. Among the many brand new entries to this edition are up-to-the-minute articles on underwater vehicles, tsunamis, warfare at sea, marine pollution, the Economic Exclusion Zone, and ship preservation. This Companion also includes authoritative and fascinating entries on maritime history: its naval battles, including Pearl Harbor and Trafalgar; its great ships, from Noah's Ark and the Bounty to the Titanic and the Mary Rose; and its most famous individuals, both real and fictional, including Christopher Columbus, Horatio Nelson, and Robinson Crusoe. Entries are fully cross-referenced, and the text is illustrated with over 260 detailed drawings, making it more accessible than ever before.

Customer Reviews:

Ahoy, you landlubbers!.......2007-07-18

If you want the history and particulars about seafaring since time began then this is just the book. Rag sailors to plastic pushers, it's all in there. A serious research source for writers, teachers, etc. I give them away as gifts to my psuedo-seafaring friends (hoping they will learn the difference from port and starboard).

Disappointment.......2007-01-16

Oxford's earlier paperback of this title had larger type, larger page size, better pictures. I had expected the same book. Now I think the hardbound is a much better buy.

An Encyclopaedia of Ships and the Sea........2005-01-16

Every time I pick up this book I find myself being drawn into reading far more than was either planned or expected. It is a beguiling book because each fact explained seems to lead to another which must also be found and read. But, in turning the pages one is constantly hijacked by something of interest which has simply caught the eye - and so it continues.

Laid out in true encyclopaedic form, this book contains almost one thousand pages of facts - many of which are supported by black and white graphics or photographs. The only exception is the colour used right at the end to show; Ships flags, ships lights, Buoys and Buoyage - all of which are, of course, wholly dependant on colour in order to be fully explained.

The bookshelf of anyone engaged in the research of ships and shipwrecks would be empty without a copy of this excellent and most useful publication.

NM

Best possible reference.......2000-04-04

With an encyclopedic format, this book provides the reader with a wide array of very well written definitions, explanations and anecdotal references to all things nautical. It also includes a significant amount of biographical information on sailors of historical renown and those of more recent times. It is written in such a way as to be captivating on its own - I often find myself looking up a nautical reference and then spending many more minutes or even hours engrossed in the book because of the other items I see when looking up the first. In each entry, the terms used to describe the entry are asterisked if those terms are further defined elsewhere in the book. I found this extremely useful for knowing where else to look for more information related to the particular entry reading. An excellent reference book for novice and expert.

An indispensable guide.......2000-02-04

I am a lay reader, not a student of nautical history, and I found this guide absolutely essential while reading the Aubrey-Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian.

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An Indispensable Guide for the Trollope Addict
An Essential Guide to An Essential Author
An Essential Guide to An Essential Author

Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0198604203

Book Description

'Scholarly, ambitious and scrupulous'. This is how the TLS recently described the Oxford Reader's Companion Series. In September 2000, the book which pioneered the series, The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens, came out in paperback. Now the Oxford Reader's Companions to Trollope, Hardy, Conrad, and George Eliot will follow on from its success. In this format each of these books, designed specifically to appeal to students of literature, contains a more comprehensive and accessible range of information than any other reference work on these writers. 'The busiest man of letters'. Few writers before or since have covered so much territory or written so many books. His output was formidable. The Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope encompasses all the latest scholarship on this fascinating writer in one single volume. Thirty-six contributors have come together to bring a wealth of biographical, bibliographical, and historical information to illuminate the wider literary and cultural context of Trollope's life and work. Over 500 A-Z entries cover Trollope's literature; his work as biographer, journalist and travel writer; subsequent criticism and praise of his work; his family members, friends, and acquaintances; the social context of his life; his influences and the things he influenced; his interests and ideas. Entries include: Works: 'England and America', 'Clarrisa', 'Modern Literature', 'Cicero as a Man of Letters', 'The Higher Education of Women', 'On The Eastern Question', 'The Civil Service as a Profession', 'Letters from South Africa' Novels: Barchester Towers, Can You Forgive Her?, Orley Farm, The Small House at Allington, The Way We Live Now Biography and auto-biography: An Autobiography, Lord Palmerston, Thackeray Plays: Did He Steal It?, The Noble Jilt Short stories: 'Christmas at Thompson Hall', 'Mrs Brumby', 'Not If I Know It' Unpublished works: 'History of World Literature', Commonplace Book Private life: holidays abroad, food and drink, portraits and photographs, smoking Public life: public service of Anthony Trollope, Trollope and the Civil Service Trollope the writer: comedy in Trollope's work, heroes and heroines, language and style, working habits Issues and social context: charity and philanthropy, education, government, suffrage, agnosticism, atheism, art and artists, dancing, fashion, marriage and divorce, monarchy, old age In addition to A-Z entries, the book offers additional material: a useful thematic overview of entries, a chronology of Trollope's life, family trees, a comprehensive bibliography for further reading and maps of Trollope's travels.

Customer Reviews:

An Indispensable Guide for the Trollope Addict.......2006-04-10

In his long writing career, Anthony Trollope wrote 47 novels, dozens of short stories, plus assorted nonfiction such as the journal of a voyage to Iceland and a book about the Spanish Main. If you like his work as much as I do, you need a vade mecum, or companion, to help remind you which character belongs to which book, with assorted explanations of the major themes and background in the Victorian era in which Trollope is so firmly situated.

R. C. Terry's encyclopedic reference is both well-informed and well-written, and certainly comprehensive. Its only competition is Richard Mullen's PENGUIN COMPANION TO TROLLOPE, which is not quite so useful. Terry's book has over 500 entries, including several aids to navigating its 600 pages. The entry for Griselda, Marchioness of Hartletop, for example, identifies the 8 Trollope novels in which she appears, at times as an important character. There is no equivalent entry in the Mullen book.

Like Balzac, Proust, and Faulkner, Trollope has characters that frequently span two or more novels. This is especially true in the two big "sextets," the Barchester and Palliser novels, though not limited to them.

Anthony Trollope's novels have been a source of great joy to me over the years. There are few reading experiences comparable to the frisson I get when opening a new Trollope novel for the first time. I would not be surprised that that thrill will recur when I start re-reading them, as I hope to do some day.

An Essential Guide to An Essential Author.......2000-10-06

This guide, at once learned and down to earth, provides a detailed look at one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope. Always a popular favorite, and only now being accorded the academic and critical attention he so richly deserves, this guide takes a reader through his many novels, travel pieces, criticism, translation and biography. Trollope was an indefatigable observer of middle- and upper-middle-class life at the height of the British Empire, during the mid-19th century. His unusually acute psychological observations -- still telling today -- and his keen eye and ear for social nuance and political intrigue are unparalleled in literature (George Eliot, a close friend, said she couldn't have embarked on "Middlemarch" without the groundwork Trollope laid in his Barsetshire novels). This volume includes thoughtful essays on all of the novels, with tidbits on critical reception at the time of their publication. It also describes aspects of Trollope's art -- his prose style, his sense of characterization, his plotting, his humor, his moral depth and his literary antecedents. For someone new to the author, it is a welcome introduction to his work; for those already in thrall to this supreme novelist's skill, it is an invaluable resource, a reminder of the breadth of Trollope's talent. It's a volume to be dipped into or savored at length. Filled with intelligence, insight and wit, this literary companion belongs on the shelf of any thoughtful reader's library.

An Essential Guide to An Essential Author.......2000-10-06

The Oxford Companion to the Theatre (Oxford Reference)

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A thorough guide to theatre, a must to any theatre scholar

The Oxford Companion to the Theatre (Oxford Reference)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre (Oxford Illustrated Histories)

ASIN: 0192115464

Book Description

Since the third edition of The Oxford Companion to the Theatre appeared in 1967, theatre throughout the world, and especially in European and all English-speaking countries, has undergone a series of changes swifter and more far-reaching than at any other time in its history. While maintaining
the primary purpose of preceding editions in providing a solid survey of the development of the theatre from its beginnings in primitive ritual to the present day in all countries that have a continuing theatrical tradition, this new edition offers more information on contemporary writers,
directors, players, companies, and theatres, both metropolitan and regional. An extensive system of cross-referencing leads the reader to entries containing related information, and a generous bibliography offers aguidance on further reading. Entries dealing with technical subjects emphasize the
historical perspective, throwing light on the remarkable accomplishments of earlier practitioners of theatrical illusion: they are illustrated where necessary with diagrams. Over 200 other illustrations are placed in thematically-arranged groups: functioning independently of the text, they show the
changes of vision brought to bear on theatrical production over more than 2000 years.

Customer Reviews:

A thorough guide to theatre, a must to any theatre scholar.......1998-10-19

I have found this guide to be an invaluable resource for researching theatre topics. It is an excelent referece, that gives the reader the direction necessary for more in depth research. Several well selected image plates clearly demonstrate key theatrical works, and illustrations in the book are excelent. Every college theatre major and professor should own this book.

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre

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The Oxford Companion to American Theatre
Gerald Bordman , and Thomas S. Hischak
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195169867

Book Description

First published in 1984, Gerald Bordman's Oxford Companion to American Theatre is the standard one-volume source on our national theatre. Critics have hailed its "wealth of authoritative information" (Back Stage), its "fascinating picture of the volatile American stage" (The Guardian), and its "well-chosen, illuminating facts" (Newsday). Now thoroughly revised, this distinguished volume once again provides an up-to-date guide to the American stage from its beginnings to the present. Completely updated by theater professor Thomas Hischak, the volume includes playwrights, plays, actors, directors, producers, songwriters, famous playhouses, dramatic movements, and much more. The book covers not only classic works (such as Death of a Salesman) but also many commercially successful plays (such as Getting Gertie's Garter), plus entries on foreign figures that have influenced our dramatic development (from Shakespeare to Beckett and Pinter). New entries include recent plays such as Angels in America and Six Degrees of Separation, performers such as Eric Bogosian and Bill Irwin, playwrights like David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein, and relevant developments and issues including AIDS in American theatre, theatrical producing by Disney, and the rise in solo performance. Accessible and authoritative, this valuable A-Z reference is ideal not only for students and scholars of theater, but everyone with a passion for the stage.

The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature (Oxford Paperback Reference)

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The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature (Oxford Paperback Reference)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195047710

Book Description

For nearly half a century, James D. Hart's Oxford Companion to American Literature has offered a matchless guided tour through American literary culture, both past and present. Hart now presents the first abridgement of the Companion in a paperback edition, making the entries of the greatest general interest from the original volume available to a much wider audience. Compact and affordable, The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature contains over 2,000 entries, including brief biographies of important authors, plot summaries of individual works, descriptions of important literary movements, and a wealth of information on other aspects of American literary life and history from the Colonial period to the modern era. It devotes approximately 325 of the biographical entries to contemporary writers, introducing such newcomers to the Companion as William Kennedy, Grace Paley, and Raymond Carver. The more specialized and esoteric entries from the original have been omitted. Like its predecessor, The Concise Oxford Companion contains a thorough system of cross references to guide the reader to related information on a given topic, as well as a chronological Index outlining significant events in the literary and social history of the United States.

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