The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature

by Margaret Drabble (Editor)

Based on the vastly popular Fifth Edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature edited by Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer, this indispensable volume offers over five thousand alphabetically arranged entries on individual novels, plays, songs, poems, novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists, philosophers, historians, fictional characters, literary movements, legends, and much more.
Like its parent volume, this abridgement features useful plot summaries, separate entries on important fictional characters, and countless biographical articles on authors and other influential figures in the world of letters, all presented with the same lightness of touch that has made the original work such a pleasure to read. Fully revised and updated with sixty new entries on contemporary writers including Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, W. Robertson Davies, P.D. James, Toni Morison, and Jeanette Winterson, this edition also includes new appendices listing the winners of the Nobel, Booker, and Pulitzer prizes. It covers topics once regarded as non-literary--detective stories, science fiction, children's stories, and comic strips among them--as well as important movements and critical theories, including the latest developments in Freudian and Marxist criticism.
With generous coverage of literature from around the world, entries on literary movements, critics, and critical theories, updated information on modern authors and works, and several entirely new essays on a number of topics such as parody, anachronism, autobiography, heroic drama, and foreign influences on English literature, this is a book that readers will find indispensable.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Literature, Literary Criticism

670 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.

Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.

Reviews

[Digby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some excellent authors like Jane Howard are not mentioned, otherwise it is helpful for uni.

[Fatma AL-kuwari · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me I think it's helpful especially in my English literature studies, everything in the book with perfect details. And I do really adore the ipad edition it's like major help for me instead of going to the Wikipedia ;)

[Evangeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

A helpful aid to have around.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fabulous reference book that covers all the major British playwrights, dramatists, novelists and other writers as well as their main works.