Series contains over two thousand primary sources on twentieth-century American history and culture, featuring seventy-five different types of sources, arranged chronologically in twelve categories, including the arts, education, government and politics, media, medicine and health, religion, and sports. Each volume has approximately 200 full or excerpted primary sources in 160-170 entries from the period representing a diversity of views that provide insight into the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from the decade. Also includes photos and illustrations. Print version available in reference.

Offers a multidimensional picture of primarily Western civilization, covering Ancient Egypt (2675-332 B.C.E.), Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 B.C.E.-476 C.E.), Medieval Europe (814-1450 C.E.), Renaissance Europe (1300-1600 C.E.), and The Age of the Baroque and Enlightenment (1600-1800 C.E.). Provides access to each historical period through the study of nine different arts and humanities topics: "Architecture and Design," "Dance," "Fashion," "Literature," "Music," "Philosophy," "Religion," "Theater," and "Visual Arts."

Covers writers who have made significant contributions to British, Irish, and Commonwealth literature from the fourteenth century to the present day. Includes in-depth critical and biographical analysis.

Covers the anthology, autobiography/memoir, drama, fiction, poetry, and short fiction. Reviews major historical developments and social movements and explains key literary terms.

This new edition updates or replaces all the original articles and adds entirely new articles on 118 more authors, raising the total to 368 articles. It also adds 38 entirely new overview essays and 4 new appendixes. Covered here are such well-known mystery writers as Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Erle Stanley Gardner, Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Allan Poe, and Dorothy Sayers. New to this edition are such venerable writers as Louisa May Alcott, Edward Stratemeyer, and Margaret Truman. Popular contemporary writers, such as Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, John Dunning, John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Rolando Hinojosa, Scott Turow, J.K. Rowling, and Stuart Woods and also included.

Covers the role and influence of African American cultural leaders, from all walks of life, from the 18th century to the present. Includes profiles, primary documents, and useful appendices.

A three-volume full-color encyclopedia dealing with a topic that goes beyond the literary perspective to provide the historical, cultural and social context of works that focus on armed conflict throughout the world and time. The set highlights the realities of war, its impact on society, and how it affects our understanding of it. Volumes include speeches, plays, poetry, and novels thematically arranged around genres, first-hand experiences, and aftermath.

Provides plot synopses and critical evaluations of a comprehensive selection of English-language and world literature that has been translated into English. Essays are in alphabetical order by title, and each includes an annotated bibliography to aid readers in further study. The set features 2,220 essays, many new or newly edited from previous editions, ready reference data on the type of work, the author and the date of first publication and where applicable, first English translation. *Print copy in reference..

A comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words. Print version in reference collection.

Covers American literary history from the 1600s to the present day, with essays on poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists, as well as major works and essays on literary movements, periods, and themes.

Provides coverage of literature from the Abbey Theatre to Israel Zangwill, covering the entire history of literature in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in the major literary languages (Anglo-Saxon, English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Latin), including substantial accounts of individual authors (e.g., Spenser, Pope, Austen) and detailed histories of particular themes, movements, genres, and institutions. Print copy in reference collection.

Covers translations out of many languages, from Greek to Korean, Swahili to Russian, with entries on individual texts (such as the Thousand and One Nights), writers (Ibsen or Proust), genres (Chinese poetry), or national literature (for example, Hungarian) complemented by more substantial essays on theoretical questions, a pioneering outline of the history of translation into English, and discussions of the problems raised by specific types of text (for example, poetry or oral literature). Print version in reference collection.

Shows connections between political/social climate during which books were written and the works themselves. Each volume focuses on major fiction, poetry and nonfiction from a particular country and region, representing approximately fifty works. Essays feature an overview that discuss genre, time, place, and other important elements with a synopsis and introduction that places the work in the context of the authors' lives. Also includes historical events and timelines, maps, illustrations, and additional readings.

Shows connections between political/social climate during which books were written and the works themselves. Each volume focuses on major fiction, poetry and nonfiction from a particular country and region, representing approximately fifty works. Essays feature an overview that discuss genre, time, place, and other important elements with a synopsis and introduction that places the work in the context of the authors' lives. Also includes historical events and timelines, maps, illustrations, and additional readings.

Convenes scholars, theorists, and practitioners of humanities computing to report on contemporary "digital literary studies." Perhaps the best way to characterize their collective account is to say that it depicts a scene of encounter. A Companion to Digital Literary Studies is fundamentally a narrative of what may be called the scene of "new media encounter" — in this case, between the literary and the digital.

Presents more than 400 biographies of authors, critics, literary characters, and historical figures, and 150 plot summaries of major works.

Includes character entries and plot summaries, literary movements, critics, and critical theories, literary societies, periodicals, libraries, copyright, censorship, coffee houses, actors and actresses, printers, publishers, booksellers, and private presses. Author biographies are provided covering novelists, dramatists, poets, historians, philosophers, scholars, critics, editors and journalists.

This comprehensive guide spans sixteen centuries of the literature and literary culture of Ireland. There is a wealth of information on writers and their works, movements, genres, topics, folklore, and historical, religious, and cultural events.

Explores the history of women and feminism throughout literature, from classical antiquity to modern times. Topics covered include misogyny and women's social roles in ancient civilizations, 16th-century women's devotional literature, 17th- and 18th-century women's captivity narratives, the women's suffrage movement in 19th-century America, women writers of the "Lost Generation," lesbian literature, and much more.

Over 2,000 biographical profiles of important American authors (with information regarding their style, subjects, and major works) and influential foreign writers as well as other figures who have been important in the nation's social and cultural history. There are more than 1,100 full summaries of important American novels, stories, essays, poems (with verse form noted), plays, biographies and autobiographies, tracts, narratives, and histories.

A comprehensive record of Australian writing from European settlement to the early 1990s. Written in clear, accessible language, the Companion contains entries on writers, plays, novels, poems, newspapers, journals, anthologies, literary prizes, movements, and professional organizations. It also includes useful plot summaries, detailed biographies, and a number of essay-length articles on key areas, such as Aboriginal writing and science fiction.

Provides scholars and fans of the crime and mystery genre with an authoritative yet playful compendium of knowledge about a literature known for its highly entertaining treatment of deadly serious puzzles.

Over 1,000 new entries have been added, ranging from new writers ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Patrick Marber, David Mitchell, Arundhati Roy ― to increased coverage of writers and literary movements from around the world. Coverage of American literature has been substantially increased, with new entries on writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Amy Tan and on movements and publications. Contextual and historical coverage has also been expanded, with new entries on European history and culture, post-colonial literature, as well as writers and literary movements from around the world that have influenced English literature.

A comprehensive record of New Zealand writing in easily accessible form. It contains more than 1,500 entries on writers, novels, plays, poetry, journals, periodicals, anthologies, literary movements, and professional organisations.

Charts the development of poetry from 1900 to the present, across the whole of the English-speaking world, from the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland to New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, Trinidad and Zimbabwe--anywhere where poets write in English. Alphabetically arranged for ease of reference, it offers biographical entries on some 1,500 individual poets, as well as over one hundred entries covering important magazines, movements, literary terms and concepts.

Presents an accessible introduction to the surviving works of prose and poetry produced in Anglo-Saxon England, from AD 410-1066

Essays on some of the most important motifs and archetypes found in folklore and literature around the world, keying them to the Index. Among the motifs are mythical animals, tabu, magic, the dead, marvels, ogres, tests, the wise and the foolish, deceptions, reversal of fortune, chance and fate, society, rewards and punishments, captives and fugitives, unnatural cruelty, sex, and the nature of life.

The first historical dictionary devoted to science fiction showing the development of science-fiction words and their associated concepts over time, with full citations and bibliographic information. Citations are drawn from science-fiction books and magazines, fanzines, screenplays, newspapers, comics, folk songs, and the Internet.

Digital version of the multi-volume reference work that documents phrases, words, and pronunciations across the United States from the colonial period to the early twenty-first century. Source materials include novels and histories, newspapers, interviews, diaries, letters, governmenat documents, biographical works, and the Internet. Includes an atlas of 1002 language communities surveyed for DARE. University of Wisconsin-Madison website on DARE (Print version available in reference collection.)

Guide to authors and their works focuses on the general canon of British literature from the fifteenth-century to the present.

Provides access to over 1,000 literary terms and a prononciation guide for over 200 troublesome phrases and terms.

Explores literature, mythology, and the Bible to give us a literary shorthand for describing people, places, and events. Over 1,900 entries on the most commonly-used allusions, with a short summary definition for the allusion or reference and at least one illustrative citation from a wide range of source materials.

Provides etymologies and examples of usage for English words. Especially useful for determining what possible meanings an author may have intended in a given work written at a given time. The online OED is updated on a quarterly basis. The OED is the premier historical dictionary of the English language.

A six-volume survey of the history of Western thought and culture, presented through 700 alphabetically arranged entries. Each entry explores the origin, cultural interpretations, and historical themes of such subjects as beauty, love, feminism, diversity, and social capital, among many others. Includes aesthetics.

This is an encyclopedic dictionary of close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms and concepts that defy easy--or any--translation from one language and culture to another. Drawn from more than a dozen languages spanning the classical, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary periods, these are terms that influence thinking across the humanities. The entries, written by more than 150 distinguished scholars, describe the origins and meanings of each term, the history and context of its usage, its translations into other languages, and its use in notable texts.