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Literary Studies

literary study skills, book reviews, and recommended reading

literary skills, book reviews, and further reading

An Introduction to Book History

June 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

authorship, writing, printing, publishing, and reading

Book history is one of the most recent and interesting branches of literary studies. It asks questions such as ‘What is a text?’, ‘What is a book?’, and ‘How do we read?’ The answers to these questions are much more complex than you might imagine. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery start An Introduction to Book History by outlining the main theories and critical debates that have informed book history studies over the last hundred years.

An Introduction to Book HistoryIt’s amazing how many different fields of study this leads to – the physical production of texts; how accurate they are; what they ‘mean’; and how they are interpreted by readers. These same questions of authorship, textual integrity, and the unique nature of a work also apply in other art forms.

In cinema, music, theatre, and television there may even be interventions from other hands. But it is writing and especially printing which are at the heart of the most important intellectual developments of the modern world, and to which they devote their first two introductory chapters. Much of their argument rests on the work of previous historians of the book and literacy, writers such as Walter Ong, Henri-Jean Martin, and Elizabeth Eisenstein.

They trace the changing role of the writer – from anonymous religious copyist in the early Renaissance, and authors working under systems of courtly patronage, to the modern concept of a creative independent working in the free commercial market supplying literary products and services.

Next comes a consideration of the practical aspects of what happens after a manuscript leaves the author. Printers, book distributors, publishers, readers, and even agents. All of these, they argue, can all affect a text; and they should certainly be seen as part of the context out of which the text arises.

Then they move on to consider what has been described as the ‘missing link’ in book history – the reader. For as many theorists have argued, the text exists in a state of potential whilst it remains as words printed on a page: it only springs into a life of real meaning when it is interpreted in the reader’s mind.

Why therefore aren’t there as many different interpretations of a text as there are different readers – all equally valid? Well, the answer to this conundrum is supplied by Stanley Fish when he comes up with the notion of ‘interpretive communities’. People sharing cultural values are likely to interpret the text in the same way.

They end by looking at the future of books and readers, An interesting detail here is that despite all the prophets of doom, a greater number of books are being read than ever before – but by fewer readers.

I was hoping for a little more on the book as a physical object, and I think longer consideration of digital literature on line might have informed their arguments. But they provide a comprehensive critical introduction to the development of the book and print culture.

© Roy Johnson 2005

An Introduction to Book History   Buy the book at Amazon UK

An Introduction to Book History   Buy the book at Amazon US


David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery, An Introduction to Book History, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pp.160, ISBN: 0415314437


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An Introduction to Literary Studies

July 2, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how to understand, analyse, and write about literature

An Introduction to Literary Studies is aimed at serious students of English and American literature at college and university level. It’s designed to show you how to approach studying literature in a practical and theoretical manner, how to understand some of the fundamental concepts of literary studies, and how to articulate your understanding by writing academic essays. Mario Klarer begins by looking at some of the very basic issues – what is fiction? what is a poem? and what are the parts of these genres we look at when we study literature?

An Introduction to Literary Studies He examines character, plot, point of view, then metaphor, imagery, and symbols. There’s also a chapter on drama too, for those who still think this is related to literary studies. Next comes a section on theoretical approaches to literature. This is where most students will need help. That’s because the developments of critical theory in the post-war period have been bewildering, to say the least. He touches on rhetoric, formalism, structuralism, semiotics, and deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, and reader-response theory. All his explanations are given in a straightforward manner and he covers definitions of key terms such as ‘literature’, ‘text’, and ‘author’ – which might seem unproblematic, until you look below the surface.

There’s a full chapter on how to write a scholarly paper, lots of suggestions for further reading, and a glossary of terms used in both literary studies and the consideration of narratives in other genres such as film.

This latest second edition fully updates the highly successful first edition to provide greater guidance for online research and to reflect recent changes to MLA guidelines for referencing and quoting sources.

So, in a sense, this book is alerting students to the issues which can be considered in the practice of literary studies. It is showing what is possible, alerting you to themes, theories, and approaches you might not have considered, and pointing you towards sources of further information – which is just what an ‘introduction’ should do.

© Roy Johnson 2004

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Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies, Andover: Routledge, 2nd edn, 2004, pp.173, ISBN: 0415333822


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Bestsellers: a short introduction

July 20, 2009 by Roy Johnson

popular fiction of the past and present

John Sutherland (professor of literature in London and California) is adept in conveying English Literature and its relevance to the general public (not unlike his contemporary John Carey). Bestsellers is typical of his approach. It’s a guide to the world of best-selling writers – writers of fiction on the whole. And it’s focused on the UK and the USA. He writes in a slick, non-patronising manner – as if talking to a peer group in the senior common room. He sees the USA as the hotbed of the bestseller – unfettered by copyright restrictions for much of the nineteenth century. And he’s very well informed on the subject of book publication and the commercial side of ‘literature’. What he looks at in particular is the question of why certain books become more popular than others.

Bestsellers: a short introductionThere’s all sorts of insider gossip and information on the publishing business sandwiched between his comments on bestsellers of the 1920s which nobody reads any more – and similar cases from the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, one best-selling novelist went on to become a Nobel prizewinner – though few people read Pearl S. Buck today.

He discusses how difficult it is to measure bestsellers. Is it sales over the past week, or over years? Is it sales of a single title, or a complete oeuvre? His answer is to offer a historical survey of year-end bestsellers – the numbers of which items sold continues to rise exponentially.

But it’s a tale in which some writers with phenomenal success are now completely unknown, and others were bestsellers ((Victor Hugo Les Miserables) but earned nothing because their works were pirated.

If there’s a weakness it’s that he doesn’t seem to have bothered creating a structure for what he has to say. Ideas and information come off every page like sparks – but one minute it’s the economics of the book trade, and the next it’s the Anglo-American copyright relation or Harry Potter promotions.

In Sutherland’s reckoning, Zane Grey has claim to be an all time best seller – with 250 million sales and 100 film adaptations – though he is challenged by Max Brand (who he?) with 900 stories and 600 full length novels to his name. And just to keep things in perspective, Earl Stanley Gardner sold 300 million copies of his crime and mystery novels.

Oxford University Press have obviously found a niche in the publishing market with these pocket-sized guides – but it’s the quality of the writing rather than their form which makes them a hit.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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John Sutherland, Bestsellers: a very short introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.127, ISBN: 0199214891


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Bookseller jargon

February 11, 2013 by Roy Johnson

understanding the language of the book trade

Bookseller jargon
When buying second-hand books you’ll often come across bookseller jargon used to describe the goods they have on offer. These descriptions appear in both printed catalogues and on web site bookstores.

The bookseller is giving an accurate description of a book and its condition, but the description often contain lots of abbreviations and specialist terms (jargon). This can sometimes appear like a secret code, and might even include abbreviations of their own bookseller jargon terms.

There is a huge specialised vocabulary involved in the book trade – terms such as ‘foxing’ to describe discoloured pages, or ‘half-binding’ to indicate that the spine will be bound in a different material, usually leather.

It’s not necessary to learn all these terms, and you can often guess at the meaning of some of them. But knowing a few of the most common expressions can help you to get a better idea of what’s on offer – and save you from making a mistake.

Knowing something about this jargon can also help you to spot bargains when buying books for as little as a penny on Internet bookshop sites.


Bookseller jargon – example I

Let’s start with a fairly straightforward example from an advert on Amazon. It’s a second-hand copy of Charles Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit. The description is quite simple, but it does introduce a few bookseller jargon terms.

Published 1935, illustrations by Phiz. Burgandy boards with gold inscription to spine, author’s signature on front. Possibly published 1935. Corners bumped and boards a little grubby. Tanning to edges, Binding is pretty tight and very little staining to pages. A few pages turned at corners. Others in series are available. Quick dispatch from Oxford based hospice charity,

author’s signature – This is very misleading, because it’s not a signature. Dickens’ signature is printed on the cover.

Corners bumped – The corners of the book covers are bent or creased with use and age.That’s fairly normal in an old book.

Tanning – The colour of the covers is fading because of exposure to light.

Binding tight – The book will not open easily and generally does not want to remain open to any given page.

pages turned at corners – A previous reader has bookmarked pages by turning down the corner of some pages.

One interesting thing to note here is that the publisher is not mentioned. In fact the publisher is Odhams, and this series was a mass-produced very cheap edition. Copies are very easy to obtain anywhere – so the price being asked for this copy (£6.85) is far too high.


Bookseller jargon – example II

Here’s a relatively simple example from AbeBooks. It’s an advert for a first edition copy of Christopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye to Berlin. You will notice that although the advert is descriptive, a few more bookseller jargon terms creep in.

Book Description: London, The Hogarth Press, 1939, 1939. Octavo. Original rough grey cloth, titles to spine in red, top edge stained red. With the dust jacket designed by Humphrey Spender printed in black and red with a photograph of a park scene by Hans Wild. Light partial toning to endpapers, an excellent copy in the lightly rubbed dust jacket with just a couple of minor nicks and creases. First edition, first impression. Published March 1939; 3,550 copies printed.

Octavo – This is the size of the book – five inches wide and eight to nine inches tall.

toning – One of many euphemisms booksellers use to describe the discoloration of paper with age.

endpapers – The sheets of paper pasted onto the inner covers of the book

lightly rubbed – This is wear caused to the edges of the book or its dust jacket as a result of being moved on and off a shelf. Another term might be ‘scuffed’.

nicks and creases – Nicks are small cuts or abrasions, and creases are permanent folds in paper which often occur on book jackets and inner pages.

first impression – The book comes from the first batch to be printed for this title – this is a guarantee of the book’s rarity.

As you can tell from this, book collectors are very concerned about the physical condition of the books they buy — with good reason. This one was for sale for £3,750.00


Bookseller jargon – example III

Here is a much more detailed and complex example. This an advert for a set of volumes which are a genuine rarity and an antiquity from the eighteenth century essayists Addison and Steele.

Addison, Johseph; Steele, Sir Richard. THE SPECTATOR. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper 1749.
8 vols. T.p. devices., engraved frontiss., dec. head and tail pieces. Some sporadic very light browning, ex-libris Sir Thomas Miller Bt. and with sm. ownership signature, top edge of a couple of leaves in vol. 4 sl. chipped, slightly rubbed gilt filleted edges with some sl. wear to corners, full speckled calf with some minor light staining to a couple of boards, raised bands dec. gilt compartments and leather title labels to rubbed and slightly chipped spines..
£125.00

Eight volumes – This is a genuine eighteenth-centry collection for only £120.00 – which seems good value to me.

T.p. devices – Title page with devices. This page lists the title and any subtitle; the author; the publisher; and the printer.

engraved frontiss – This is an engraved illustration at the beginning of the book, usually facing the title page.

dec. head and tail pieces – A decorative ornament found at the start of a chapter or a division in a book (very common in the eighteenth century).

very light browning – This is signs of discolouration in the paper – an indication of its age.

ex-libris – A Latin term which means ‘from the library of’. This is often indicated by a small label pasted into the book’s inside cover.

sm. ownership signature – A small signature of a (or the) previous owner.

sl. chipped – Slightly chipped. This usually means that small parts of the page are missing or frayed.

gilt filleted edges – Fillets are decorative lines impressed on a book cover. These have been rubbed, and perhaps lost some of the gilding.

sl. wear to corners – Worn perhaps as the books have been taken on and off shelves.

full speckled calf – The volumes have been bound in leather – and ‘speckled’ means the calf’s hide has been treated to create small dark spots or specks.

boards – This is the heavy-duty cardboard used in the construction of the book covers.

slightly chipped spines – Futher signs of use and age. This is to be expected on something three centuries old.


Red button A full glossary of bookseller jargon

Red button Common abbreviations used by booksellers

Red button Book formats and sizes

© Roy Johnson 2013


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Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, How-to guides, Literary Studies, Literary studies Tagged With: antiquarian books, Bibliography, buying books, Literary studies, Media, second-hand books

Canonising Hypertext

June 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

putting literary hypertext into the curriculum?

I remember first coming across hypertext in the early 1990s, and feeling that it was like a glimpse of a newly discovered world. Ted Nelson, Jay Bolter, and George Landow all became my heroes overnight. There wasn’t much you could do with it in those days, outside struggling with a few bits of proprietary software such as Hypercard. But as soon as we got the Web, HTML and the first browser (Mosaic: still got my copy) – we were away!

Canonising HypertextSome hyperfictions had been written at that time – and more have since: stories which exploit the possibilities of non-sequential narratives, hyperlinks between pages (or lexia), multiple navigation systems, and reader-generated choices. Astrid Ensslin thinks these creations deserve more attention. Indeed, she wants to argue that they should be included in the ‘canon’ of literary studies – and this is a book-length explanation of why that should be.

But along the way she takes in lots of other issues. the current state of hypertext writing; educational theories and policies; debates regarding the ‘canon’ of English literature; and IT skills in the classroom. It is something of an uphill struggle, because she is surrounded wherever she looks by a lack of evidence to support her claim or any enthusiasm for its implementation.

As a postmodern critic, she is sceptical about the very notion of a canon, yet she is eager to see examples of hypertexts included within it – seemingly oblivious to the fact that it takes a long time for any writer to be canonized. Even modern classics such as D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce were censored and banned before they became a part of Eng. Lit.

So in the absence of any hypertext in the canon of English Literature, she is forced to propose her own. These turn out to be the fairly well-known Michael Joyce (afternoon), Stuart Moulthorpe (Victory Garden) and Jayne Yellowlees Douglas (I Have Said Nothing). These are the ‘first generation’ of hypertext writers. There are ‘plot summaries’ so far as this is possible with non-sequential writing, yet even whilst making great claims for their work, she is curiously reluctant to quote from them to prove that these qualities exist. [I have checked out the work where it’s accessible, and I can tell you that there is nothing to get excited about.]

[As an aside, I simply cannot understand why so many of these writers imprison themselves within the confines of proprietary software (Eastman’s Storyspace) when the vast, free, and ubiquitous resources of HTML-based multimedia is open to them. Maybe it’s because Eastman also acts as a publishing house, and sells their products on its site?]

She then makes something of a swerve – into the realms of the philosophy of education – before getting back to hypertext in the classroom. There, to what should be nobody’s surprise, there is little evidence of its being used to its full potential, let alone being ‘canonized’. Ensslin huffs and puffs at length considering what could be done, what might be done, and what should be done about it. She even spells out the curriculum for a project she ran – and shows the results, which were ‘encouraging’.

Does any of this alter the potential of literary hypertext? I’m afraid not – because she ignores two very important factors. Number one – every day, millions of people are reading and writing hypertexts on blogs and Wikis (two terms which only crop up once in the whole book). Of course she would argue that the sort of hypertexts she has in mind are creative, literary, and fictional – whereas the majority of bloggers are writing non-fictional prose.

Number two – It doesn’t seem to occur to her that hypertext simply isn’t an appropriate medium for imaginative literature. This is because it lacks the features which readers value very highly in imaginative literary genres – a highly organised and very subtle sense of structure in the work. We like tightly organised plots, themes, symbols, and carefully articulated stories. These are what separate ‘literature’ from plain prose. Moreover, we have prized equally highly, since the middle of the nineteenth century, a subtly controlled point of view. This is not possible if the reader is genuinely free to take any route through a collection of documents or pages.

I have to warn you that she writes in a style which is designed to impress academic promotion committees – turgid, abstract, clotted with qualifiers, over-signposted, and dripping with ‘scholarly references’. At one point I began to suspect that the book might be an undeclared research project – perhaps a postgraduate dissertation or thesis.

Nevertheless, for anyone interested in the subject of electronic writing, hypertext, or experimental narratives, I think it’s worth grappling with the difficulties to get an up-to-date view on the issues.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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Astrid Ensslin, Canonizing Hypertext, London: Continuum, 2007, pp.197, ISBN: 0826495583


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Close reading tutorials

March 21, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorials in literary criticism and close critical analysis

What is close reading?

Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the individual printed words of a text: it also involves making yourself sensitive to all the nuances and connotations of a language as it is used by skilled writers.

This can mean anything from a work’s particular vocabulary, sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being dealt with, the way in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves almost everything from the smallest linguistic items to the largest issues of literary understanding and judgement.

  • language
  • meaning
  • structure
  • philosophy

Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more complex. The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work.

A close reading exercise is not a guessing game or a treasure hunt: it is an attempt to understand the mechanisms by which a narrative is constructed and its meanings generated. However, a really successful close reading can only be made when you know the work as a whole.

The tutorials listed here offer a variety of approaches to close reading. Some focus attention on details of literary style; others concentrate on how the meaning(s) of a text are constructed. All of them pay close attention to the language being used.


Charles Dickens – Bleak House

Bleak House close readingThis tutorial looks at the famous opening passage of Bleak House and examines Dickens’s use of language, simile, and metaphor. It argues that whilst Dickens is often celebrated for the vividness of his descriptions, the true genius of his literary power is in imaginative invention.

redbtn Close reading – Bleak House.

 

If you wish to read the complete novel in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn Bleak House (full text)


Joseph Conrad – An Outpost of Progress – I

Close reading tutorialsThis is the first of two close reading tutorials on Conrad’s early tale An Outpost of Progress. This one looks at the opening of the story and examines the semantic values transmitted in Conrad’s presentation of the narrative. That is, how the meaning(s) of the story are embedded in even the smallest details of of the prose.

redbtn Close reading – An Outpost of Progress

 

If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn An Outpost of Progress (full text)


Katherine Mansfield – The Voyage

Close reading tutorialsThis tutorial looks at one of the opening paragraphs of Katherine Mansfield’s short story The Voyage. It covers the standard features of a writer’s prose style – in the use of vocabulary, syntax, rhythm, tone, narrative mode, and figures of speech; but then it singles out the crucial issue of point of view for special attention. Mansfield was one of the only writers to establish a first-rate world literary reputation on the production of short stories alone.

redbtn Close reading – The Voyage

If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn The Voyage (full text)


Joseph Conrad – An Outpost of Progress – II

Close reading tutorialsThis is the second of two close reading tutorials on Conrad’s early tale An Outpost of Progress. It looks at the details of Conrad’s style as a master of English prose (even though it was his third language). The tutorial looks at his ‘signature’ use of abstract language to intensify the moral seriousness, the satirical irony, and the emotional drama of his narratives.

redbtn Close reading – An Outpost of Progress

If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn An Outpost of Progress (full text)


Virginia Woolf – Monday or Tuesday

Close reading tutorialsVirginia Woolf used the short story as an experimental platform on which to test out her innovations in language and fictional narrative. This tutorial offers a detailed reading of the whole of the experimental story Monday or Tuesday. It shows how its mixture of lyrical images, speculative thoughts, and fragments of story-line add up to more than the sum of its parts.

redbtn Close reading – Monday or Tuesday

If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn Monday or Tuesday (full collection)


D.H.Lawrence – Fanny and Annie

Close reading tutorialsD.H.Lawrence was the first world-class writer to have emerged from the working class. His work was passionate, sensual, and controversial. This tutorial looks at the opening paragraphs of his short story Fanny and Annie published in 1922. It considers in particular his use of the rhetorical devices of repetition and alliteration to impart a poetic impressionism to his writing.

redbtn Close reading – Fanny and Annie.

If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn Fanny and Annie (full text)

© Roy Johnson 2014


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Common Reading

June 11, 2009 by Roy Johnson

writers, critics, intellectuals, and their audiences

Alternative titles for this collection of literary essays might be The Last Men of Letters, Critics and the Marketplace, or even (to choose the sub-titles of two other Stefan Collini books) Essays in History and Culture or Intellectuals in Britain – because it is largely a study of writers 1920-1960 who earned their living as journalists and critics in the world of literary magazines and journals. But Common Reading is also a consideration of their readership, how they have been forced to change over the years, and the state of intellectual biography in the twenty-first century.

Common ReadingHe describes the collection himself as ‘exercises in intellectual portraiture [and] the nature of the diverse public for whom these figures wrote, and … the cultural traditions and institutional frameworks within which they operated’. The first half of the book is a series of literary portraits of critics and what he calls ‘public intellectuals’ – Cyril Connolly, Edmund Wilson, George Orwell, E.H.Carr, E.P.Thompson, Perry Anderson, and even Roger Scruton.

The second half is a series of extended essays on literary and intellectual culture as reflected in journals and magazines, including those for which he himself writes, such as the Times Literary Supplement. He speaks from deep within the cultural establishment – Professor of English at Cambridge – but the essays are pitched at the same level as the work he is describing: that is, they are well informed without being overly academic, and accessible to the common reader without being over-simplified or condescending. I was interested to see that he endorsed Perry Anderson’s critique of contemporary academic writing as suffering from ‘peer-group fixation, index-of-citations mania, gratuitous apparatuses, pretentious jargons, [and] guild conceit’.

This is not to say that he is against scholastic rigour. His essay on two biographies of George Orwell offers a bravura display of examining the value of literary evidence in making factual or historical claims about a personal life. He makes similar analyses on the ‘Art of Biography’ (as Virginia Woolf calls it in her essay on the subject) in the case of a critical account of the successful-but-ineffectual Stephen Spender written by John Sutherland.

He also does an excellent line in biography as critical reassessment. There’s a devastating piece on Andre Malraux – art-thief, self-appointed hero of a war he avoided, and non-elected politician – which has one wondering how anybody was taken in by such frauds in the first place. Similarly with the living, his analysis of Roger Scruton (Hegel in Green Wellies, Roger of Salisbury) leaves the fustian so-called philosopher in tatters at the end of half a dozen pages.

The style of Collini’s writing is something of a curious mixture. He embraces the long cadences and deeply nested qualifying clauses of the early twentieth century in which he is clearly so well read. But his jokes, casual references, and asides are offered in a pungently modern fashion. He’s writing for an intellectual audience, and he expects you to keep up.

He’s dealing with the same sort of issues as John Carey in The Intellectuals and the Masses – the relationship of intellectuals to the audiences which consumed their work. And like Carey he offers fascinating glimpses into the social and political culture of the literary professional – complete with how much they earned, how many books they sold, and how their critical reputations have risen (and often fallen again) in the last half century.

These are studies in literary and cultural history of a very high order. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t come across Collini’s work before, but I now look forward to working my way through his considerable back catalogue.

© Roy Johnson 2010

Common Reading   Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Stefan Collini, Common Reading, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.384, ISBN: 0199569797


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Companion to English Literature

July 28, 2009 by Roy Johnson

authors, books, literary topics, and cultural issues

The first edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature was published in 1932, and quickly established itself as the standard source of reference for students and general readers. Since then it has gone through six editions, the latest of which has been hugely updated and expanded. Of course it’s not the sole work of editor Margaret Drabble. She has assembled a team of 140 fairly distinguished authors (all listed) who have written authoritatively on their specialisms.

Oxford Companion to English LiteratureThe entries are biographies of novelists, poets, and dramatists; and there are sketches of well-known philosophers, historians, critics, and biographers. It includes non-English writers such as Balzac, Goethe, and Tolstoy, as well as figures from other genres such as Dürer, Pasolini, and Prokoviev. It includes mini-essays on genres; fictional characters; famous works (Aaron’s Rod to Max Beerbohm’s Zuleika Dobson); famous places, and literary theory.

There are bonuses, such as the special essays on detective, gothic, and historical fiction. It also explains literary genres such as free verse, the epic, metaphors, and naturalism. So if you need a potted account of the differences between ‘New Historicism’ and ‘Cultural Materialism’ for instance, it can be found here, cross-referenced and explained in jargon-free language.

The extras are also entries on significant magazines such as Edinburgh Review and Atlantic Monthly; entries on deconstruction, folios and quartos; the Hogarth Press and Penguin Books; performance poetry and post-colonial literature.

One particularly useful feature is the potted accounts of novels and dramas. I’m fairly sure I will be going back to that, having refreshed my memory of the sprawling plot of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano as a sort of test case.

So, a typical entry runs as follows. This is a literature-related text which had a huge influence in the Cold War period.

God that Failed, The: Six Studies in Communism, a volume published in 1950, edited by R.H.S.Crossman, which marked a significant point in the reaction against the pro-communist mood of the 1930s. It contained contributions by three ex-communists, *Koestler, *Silone, and R. *Wright, and by three sympathisers, *Gide (presented by Enid *Starkie), Louis Fischer, and *Spender (who had been a party member for a matter of weeks only).

There is a detailed timeline covering the period 1000 to 2005. This lists major literary works, and it also records important events which happened at the same time, to provide a socio-political context. For those of us who were denied a classical education, there’s a generous outline of its main authors, texts, and characters – from Aristophanes and Aristotle to Virgil and Xenophon. There are also appendix lists of poets laureate, plus Nobel, Pulitzer, and Booker Man prizewinners for literature.

This is the sort of reference book which you will grab off the shelf the moment you see a name you don’t recognise, when you want to check the date, the author, or the correct title of a work you see mentioned, or if you want to know about ‘The Battle of Alcazar’ (1594) or ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ (1875).

It certainly gets pride of place in my handy revolving bookcase, alongside the great dictionaries and my local A to Z.

© Roy Johnson 2006

Companion to English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon UK
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Margaret Drabble (ed), The Oxford Companion to English Literature, (revised sixth edition) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp.1172, ISBN: 0198614535


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Filed Under: Literary Studies Tagged With: Companion to English Literature, Cultural history, Literary history, Literary studies, Reference

Concise Chronology of English Literature

November 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

what was written and published between 1474 and 2000

What were people writing about as Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or whilst engineers built the first railways in the nineteenth century? This reference book Concise Chronology of English Literature lists the major and some minor works published in every year between 1474 and 2001. Each year in the chronology begins with a list of interesting events, births, and deaths. The later entries also include other cultural items such as films, television productions, and plays.

Chronology of English Literature There’s a big index which lists the authors and all their works listed by date – so you can either see an entry in its chronological context or look up its dating directly. It represents highbrow, middlebrow, and even lowbrow tastes, so the editors have tried to be egalitarian. So for instance, we learn that 1900 saw the birth of the Labour Party; the death of Ruskin, Nietzsche, and Oscar Wilde; and the publication of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, Bernard Shaw’s Fabianism and the Empire, and H.G.Wells’ Love and Mr Lewisham.

It was also the year which saw the first production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, the Boxer Uprising in China, and the publication of S.R. Crockett’s The Stickit Minister’s Wooing, and Other Galloway Stories – which I have to confess I have never heard of before, and I bet you haven’t either.

Although the entries are short, there is an amazing amount of fine detail. For instance, here are two listings from 1756:

David Hume (1711-76)

The History of Great Britain [vol ii] NF Published 1756, dated 1757. Volume i published 1754 (q.v.) See also History of England 1759

Charlotte Lennox (1729? – 1804) (tr.) The Memoirs of the Countess of Berci F Anonymous. Adapted from L’Histoire tragi-comique de notre temps by Vital d’Audiguier (1569-1624)

The more recent entries – say from 2000 onwards read like a list of best-sellers in the weekend supplements. But then of course, who knows how many of these titles will stand the test of time. Will people still think Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Anita Brookner’s The Bay of Angels summarised the turn of the century? I somehow doubt it.

On some items there is additional publishing history details which appeals to literary anoraks like me. For instance:

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Youth F

Published on 13 November 1902. Contains ‘Youth’ (first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, September 1898), ‘The Heart of Darkness’ (first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, February 1898), and ‘The End of the Tether’ (first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, July-December 1902).

This is useful information for researchers, historians, and detail specialists. All of which might all sound dry as dust – but the strange thing is that I imagine that this will stay at the front of my desktop bookshelf as a useful resource.

Concise Chronology of English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Concise Chronology of English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2005


Michael Cox (ed), The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd revised edition 2005, pp.844, ISBN: 0198610548


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Concise Companion to English Literature

July 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

authors, books, literary topics, and cultural issues

This Concise Companion to English Literature is a cut-down paperback version of Margaret Drabble’s Oxford Companion to English Literature. It’s based on the sixth edition, but it adds 500+ new entries on contemporary writers, ‘women writers’ and literary theorists. The main entries are thumbnail sketches of novelists, poets, and dramatists; but there are also entries representing philosophers, historians, scholars, critics, biographers, travel writers, and journalists.

Concise Companion to English Literature Topics covered include authors (from Abelard to Zola); literary genres (from the Absurd to yellow-backs); characters in fiction, drama, and poetry; famous works (Lawrence’s Aaron’s Rod to Max Beerbohm’s Zuleika Dobson); famous literary places, and concepts in literary theory. There are bonuses, such as the occasional special mini-essays on topics such as biography, or detective, gothic, and historical fiction. It also explains literary genres such as free verse, the epic, metaphors, and naturalism.

It more or less reflects contemporary concerns: Sorley McLean and Marshall McLuhan get far less space than Bernard McLaverty.

The extras are entries on significant magazines such as Edinburgh Review and Atlantic Monthly; entries on deconstruction, folios and quartos; the Hogarth Press and Penguin Books; performance poetry and post-colonial literature.

There are also appendix lists of poets laureate, plus Nobel, Pulitzer, and Booker Man prizewinners for literature.

One useful feature is the potted plots of novels and dramas. I’m fairly sure I will be going back to that, having refreshed my memory of the sprawling plot of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano.

For those of us who were denied a classical education, there’s a generous outline of its main authors, texts, and characters – from Aristophanes and Aristotle to Virgil and Xenophon.

This is the sort of reference book which you will grab off the shelf the moment you see a name you don’t recognise, when you want to check the date, the author, or the correct title of a work you see mentioned, or if you want to know about ‘The Battle of Alcazar’ (1594) or ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ (1875).

© Roy Johnson 2005

Concise Companion to English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Concise Companion to English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon US


Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer, The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 2003, pp.752, ISBN: 0199214921


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