Dinah Birch - The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature

FOURTH EDITION

Edited by DINAH BIRCH
and KATY HOOPER

Previous editions edited by
Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom

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Margaret Drabble and Oxford University Press 2012

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First issued as an Oxford University Press Paperback 1990
Second edition 2003
Third edition 2007
Fourth edition 2012

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The concise Oxford companion to English literature. Fourth edition / edited by Dinah Birch and
Katy Hooper.
pages cm (Oxford paperback reference)
Previous editions edited by Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer.
"Based on the seventh edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature (2009)"Preface.
ISBN 978-0-19-960821-8 (pbk.)
1. English literatureEncyclopedias. 2. English literatureBio-bibliographyEncyclopedias.
3. English-speaking countriesIntellectual lifeEncyclopedias. 4. English-speaking countriesIn
literatureEncyclopedias. I. Birch, Dinah, editor of compilation. II. Hooper, Katy, editor of
compilation.
PR19.D732 2012
820.90003dc23

2012004182

ISBN 9780199608218
ebook ISBN 9780191036743

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

This volume is based on the seventh edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature ( 2009 ). Every entry retained has been revised, those on contemporary writers have been updated, and new entries have been added. We hope that this fourth edition of The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature will continue to provide a lively and authoritative source of reference for general readers, scholars, students, and journalists looking for a guide to English literature in its broadest context.

Areas of literature which received enhanced coverage in the parent edition, including childrens literature, black British writing, African American literature, postcolonial literature, science fiction, travel writing, and fantasy, have retained their expanded role, and there are new entries on nature writing and ecocriticism. Space has also been found for a small selection of contemporary writers not previously included, for example Lee Child and Nina Raine; for earlier writers in whose work recent research or translations have fostered a new interest, for example Mary Hays and Tove Jansson, and for themes and forms which have newly come to prominence, for example vampires in literature and manga. Internet links have been provided to guide readers to useful supplementary sources of information.

The editors would like to thank all the contributors to The Oxford Companion to English Literature whose work reappears in this volume in shortened form, and to acknowledge the thoughtful advice on young adult literature offered by Rowena Birch, Jenny Baines, and Gwen Baines. The editors alone are responsible for any differences between the material in this Concise Companion and that in its parent volume.

DINAH BIRCH

KATY HOOPER

Liverpool
October 2011