| The Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index is by far the most comprehensive index yet published to the secondary literature dealing with science fiction and fantasy and related genres. Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1878-1985 indexed more than 19,000 individual books, articles, essays, news reports, and audiovisual items. Although the earliest entry is an 1878 item on Jules Verne, most of the entries date from 1945 through 1985. Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1985-1991 indexed more than 16,270 items. This volume, covering 1992 through 1995, with newly located earlier material, indexes 10,627 items. More than 95 percent of the items indexed were personally examined by the author; citations to the balance are based on secondary sources. |
| Fantastic literature is here defined as including science fiction, fantasy, and horror/supernatural /weird fiction. Science fiction generated the largest number of entries, followed by fantasy and horror. Approximately 90 percent of the indexed items are in English. Most of the citations to pre-1980 non-English material were supplied by David Samuelson, Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach, and supplemented by material from several European contributors, notably Luk de Vos of the Netherlands. Coverage of European material is representative, not comprehensive. The most significant non-English coverage is of French, German, and Italian material, but many other countries are represented. The non-English language entries are entered by author, with subject headings where subject analysis was possible. For a variety of reasons involving both the background of this segment of the project and the lack of a multilingual word processing program, diacritical marks are often omitted. |
| This index began in 1967 on 3x5-inch index cards, when no indexes to the secondary literature of science fiction and fantasy existed. In 1980, I published a preliminary computer-output microfiche bibliography, The Science Fiction Index, which contained 4,350 citations. In 1972, the first book-length bibliography of science fiction secondary literature was published, Thomas D. Clareson's Science Fiction Criticism: An Annotated Checklist (Kent State University Press), which descriptively annotated more than 800 items including book review columns from general magazines. Citations to reviews are contained in my Science Fiction Book Review Index and Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Review Index, published by Gale Research, covering over 85,000 reviews published from 19231991. The Research Index section of Charles N. Brown and William G. Contento's annual Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror supplemented and updated Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index from 19871991. |
| A variety of methods were used to identify the items considered for indexing. A significant number were located by examination of my personal collection, and by intensive research in the Texas A&M University Library Science Fiction Research Collection. Bibliographic searching of published indexes, such as |
|
