The Oxford Companion to English Literature

Front Cover
Margaret Drabble
Oxford University Press, 1998 - Biography & Autobiography - 1154 pages
Since Sir Paul Harvey's original Oxford Companion to English Literature was published in 1932, it has established itself as the standard source of reference for general readers, as well as an indispensable guide for students and specialists, on all aspects of English literature and English literary culture.
In 1985, under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, with a team of distinguished contributors, the text was completely revised while retaining the essential characteristics of Sir Paul Harvey's much-loved volume. Since then, the Companion has continued to respond to the needs of contemporary readers, with a revision, published in 1995, containing sixty new entries on emerging contemporary voices. This new revision continues in this tradition, adding 16 survey articles on important literary concepts to reassert the position of the Companion as the most complete and readable reference guide to English literary culture currently available. No comparable volume offers such extensive coverage of the classical roots of English literature, and of European authors and works that have influenced the development of English literature. Its wide range of articles cover not only authors and their works, but also fictional characters, plot summaries, composers and artists, literary and artistic movements, historians, philosophers, scholars, as well as editors, publishing history, literary societies, newspapers and periodicals, critical terms and theory.
With new articles on such topics as British Black Literature, Post-Colonial Literature, Spy Fiction, Structuralism, Fantasy Fiction, Children's Literature, Ghost Stories, Historical Fiction, and much more, this revised edition offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage available of the fascinating and multifarious world of English literature.

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About the author (1998)

Margaret Drabble was born on June 5, 1939 in Sheffield, England. She attended The Mount School in York and Newnham College, Cambridge University. After graduation, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford during which time she understudied for Vanessa Redgrave. She is a novelist, critic, and the editor of the fifth edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Her works include A Summer Bird Cage; The Millstone, which won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in 1966; Jerusalem the Golden, which won James Tait Black Prize in 1967; and The Witch of Exmoor. She also received the E. M. Forster award and was awarded a Society of Authors Travelling Fellowship in the 1960s and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980.