Even given a field that already included the Oxford Companion to English Literature (Drabble, 2000) and its Cambridge counterpart, the Guide to Literature in English (Head, 2006) (RR 2006/149), this five volume work running to some 2,620 pages would stand apart by virtue of its sheer size. The ambition is commensurate. Assisted by a board of five senior editors, Columbia University's David Scott Kastan seeks nothing less than to cover the entire history of British literature, from the origins of the English language to the present day. In doing so, the Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature thus covers a truly diverse range of texts: from Anglo‐Saxon riddles to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novel series and the poetry of Benjamin Zephariah.
An economical preface explains that the enterprise is “designed particularly for students”. Kastan shows sensitivity to the fact that the terms “literature” and, especially, “British” are themselves contested sites. The former is defined deftly for these purposes as “a distinctive mode of discourse appealing to the imagination as well as intellect” and the latter in geographical rather than political terms, embracing work produced in the islands that comprise the current UK and Republic of Ireland. Writers such as Henry James (American‐born), Joseph Conrad (Polish), Hugh MacDairmid (Scottish), Dylan Thomas (Welsh) and Seamus Heaney (whose passport is famously green) are therefore brought satisfactorily together for their contribution to “the universal republic of letters”.
The body of the Encyclopedia consists of just over 500 signed articles by some 370 scholars from Europe and North America, arranged alphabetically by subject. Of these essays, about four‐fifths are devoted to authors and, as with Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) or Michael Field (Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper), these appear under more familiar pseudonyms where appropriate. As expected, authors are accorded one entry each, with the exception of William Shakespeare, who has separate essays devoted to his life, histories, comedies, tragedies and poems. The studies are typically four pages or about 2,500 words in length. However, among the authors a hierarchy also clearly operates beyond the primacy of Shakespeare, as there are much longer pieces on the major canonical figures – notably modernists like T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf. The remaining essays address anonymous works such as the Pearl manuscript, genres, movements, institutions, and general themes like the canon itself.
Inevitably, there are omissions that some readers are going to wish were present, as Karsan freely acknowledges. Alan Ayckbourne, the prolific playwright, is notably absent. The poet Tom Paulin is included, but not his Oxford University colleagues Bernard O'Donoghue or Craig Raine. This reader was disappointed to see Charles Maturin, author of the classic Gothic text Melmoth the Wanderer, omitted. By contrast, a few of the choices that are actually included appear curious. J. M. Coetzee, despite two Bookers not to mention a Nobel Prize, remains South African. The illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, also included, was famous for association with literary figures rather than his contribution to literature itself. Similarly, Queen Victoria certainly defined an era, but it is arguable whether her own output really warrants an essay in a literary encyclopedia. The most anomalous and contentious inclusion is probably The Beatles, credited in Kevin J.H. Dettmar's study as songwriters who “bridged the boundaries between literature and music”. To these ears this is a claim that could also be made for David Bowie, Elvis Costello and The Smiths, all of whose lyrics have been similarly rich in complexity, but none of whom rate even a mention here.
Generally though, the editorial staff have made a commendable attempt to represent the richness and diversity of British literature over a long time period. Some 81 female writers are included – about one‐quarter of the total – and there has obviously been an attempt to rehabilitate some forgotten or neglected authors and texts. It is pleasing to see attention drawn to the sixteenth‐century Mirror for Magistrates (long derided as “dull” according to contributor Andrew Hadfield), and to figures like Caedman, the Old English poet, Osbern Bohenham, medieval writer of saints' lives, and the poet and essayist Anna Letitia Barbauld, among many others. Living writers like the Irish poet Eavan Boland are acknowledged and, as demonstrated by pieces on Thomas Chatterton and Keith Douglas, a Second World War poet dead at 24, tribute paid to truncated promise.
Organization of the essays is, on the whole, excellent for researchers and browsers. Most of the entries contain subheadings, which aid browsing considerably. Allen J. Frantzen's contribution on the Old English epic Beowulf, for example, is a model of clarity, incorporating sections on the history of the poem, the story, the poet's achievement and finally the transmission of the text through the centuries since it first appeared. A few pieces, such as Peter Boxall's contribution on Samuel Beckett, do not contain sub‐headings and appear a little dense in comparison. There are cross‐references to related entries at the end of the text of each article. For example, from Gary Kelly's piece on Helen Maria Williams, the reader is directed to essays on romanticism and sensibility.
Each contribution ends with a selective bibliography: of works (where the entry is about a writer); editions, where publishing history renders this appropriate, and secondary critical reading. Reflecting variations in the history and depth of scholarly attention, these tend to vary in length. Penny Field's piece on James Hogg, for instance, surprisingly lists only three critical sources, whereas the bibliography to Dolores Chapelle Wojciehowski's masterly survey of literary theory suggests nearly 30 general reference and secondary works. The average is about a dozen, and the contributors have been conscientious in reflecting the range and currency of research, although it was a little surprising to see Paulin's much‐lauded study, The Day Star of Liberty, missing from Jon Klancher's piece on William Hazlitt. Most of the bibliographies are annotated, these usually taking the form of summaries of content or approach, but occasionally, as in Kevin Bell's attack on Saralyn R. Daly's study of Katherine Mansfield as being “marred by dogmatism”, overtly critical. The bibliography for the entry on Heaney, by John Goodby, lacks annotations and the essay sadly predates the poet's latest collection, District and Circle. This is a minor caveat though, given the dedication to the project and thoroughness of approach shown by contributors throughout.
Kastan has not imposed a uniform style and the essays themselves display a variety of approaches. There are many examples of excellent close readings of texts, as in Seth Lerer's piece on Anglo‐Saxon elegies, but this variety makes for a slight unevenness of information content overall. The contribution on Gothic by Robert Miles, for instance, focuses on links to the Gothic revival in architecture and Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, but says very little about the mode's survival beyond the mid‐nineteenth century and nothing at all about its continuing manifestations in modern literature. This unevenness may not be apparent in quick reference use, but it becomes so when browsing, especially through the entries on people. These studies usually begin with or are framed by biographical details, but on occasion such detail is scant and even elementary facts like key dates are omitted. For example, Cora Kaplan's piece on Elizabeth Barrett Browning takes the form of a brief critical biography, but concludes with an appraisal of the poet's Aurora Leigh rather than an account of her death in 1861. There is occasional conflict between the critic's natural urge for polemic about a specialism and the duty, in the context of an encyclopedia, to introduce their subject in more general terms. John Marx's essay on H.G. Wells, for instance, contains brief sections on Wells' fiction and relationships, but fleeting details about his life for the reader new to this author. The most successful essays, as in Nina Auerbach's intense profile of Daphne du Maurier, which presents its subject as haunted by ancestry but which still manages to give an outline of the subject's life and oeuvre, tend to marry the two functions.
Browsing also brings to light a few other instances where tighter editorial control might have been exercised. Benjamin Disraeli succeeded an ailing Lord Derby as Prime Minister in 1868 rather than being “elected” to the post as Irene Tucker suggests in her profile. The claim made by Gerald Hammond that the Geneva Bible “may fairly be described as the most influential book ever printed in English” is repeated verbatim for John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress by David Hawkes. Heather Hirshfield's statement that The Revenger's Tragedy is “believed to have been written by either Thomas Middleton or Cyril Tourneur” rather contrasts with Neil Rhodes' definite crediting of Middleton as the play's sole author. And Elizabeth Klaner's bald description of Tom Stoppard as “the most highly‐acclaimed British playwright since World War II” may raise the odd eyebrow, not least among admirers of Harold Pinter.
Nevertheless, if the content is just a little variable when scrutinised, the packaging of the whole is quite impressive. There are some 300 illustrations, mainly of authors. One could actually have wished for more, as it looks inconsistent that the set features a portrait of Kingley Amis but not his son Martin, for example. The entries are preceded in the first volume by an excellent and extremely useful chronology from ca. 400 to the present, which allows the searcher to see the subjects of articles listed alongside key historical events and contexts at a glance and in an easily‐digestible tabular form. The final supplementary feature is a single 150‐page index in the fifth volume, which brings together authors, works and subjects, including those that are not the subject of an article. Entries in the index are followed by volume and page number, the former in boldface. Major literary works appear in italics while short stories or shorter poems appear in double quotation marks. Works are listed with author's surname in parentheses, for example King Lear (Shakespeare). A little confusingly, indented lists given under an author's name tend not to, as one would expect, include all his or her works addressed in the text. That given for Percy Bysshe Shelley, for example, features only “The Cloud” and Prometheus Unbound: one actually has to look under Cenci in the index to find that there is any discussion of this great tragedy. A fully cross‐referenced index would be considerably longer and more repetitious, however, so the editorial board may be commended for providing one as comprehensive and painstakingly careful as this is.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature is a massive work in every sense. Substantial to the point of unwieldiness, it is probably too expensive for the general reader, who in addition to a high income would need a strong bookshelf. However, it is a worthy acquisition for public and, especially, academic libraries, where it would prove an invaluable resource for undergraduates and, in its bibliographical referencing especially, a useful first recourse for postgraduate researchers. In this sense, Kastan and his colleagues have achieved their educational objective handsomely.
