The YWES is a record of scholarly writing on the English language and on literature written in English. It is published annually and attempts to cover all significant contributions to English studies. This volume (no. 75), published in March 1997, covers the year 1994 in 17 chapters. Subject specialists have surveyed that year’s output of books and articles on the English language and on English, American and Commonwealth literature.
The text is presented in a narrative form and the chapters cover the history of literature on a century‐by‐century basis. For example, after the opening chapter on books about the English language appears a chapter on Old English, then Middle English, then through the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, forward to contemporary times. There are chapters also devoted to each of the following greats: Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton. At the end of each chapter full bibliographic details of the books reviewed are listed.
Immediately following the contents page in the YWES is a list of the journals covered by this volume; almost 1,000 journals are cited. There is an index of critics in alphabetical order and an index of authors and subjects treated. Walford says that the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature is more comprehensive than YWES, but it is not annotated. Clearly, YWES is a standard text for students of literatures in English and this volume is likely to prove its worth in larger public and academic reference libraries.
