A Dictionary of Literary Symbols (2nd ed.)

A largely negative review of the first edition of Michael Ferber's A Dictionary of Literary Symbols (1999), authored by the present reviewer, appeared in this journal in 2000 (RR 2000/124). My objections ranged from the lack of an index, the selective nature of the entries, and concluded that Cambridge “ought to have produced a less idiosyncratic and more scholarly volume”, a more comprehensive one which “clearly stated” the secondary sources being drawn upon, “one which drew less on diverse references in non‐English literatures and was more clearly focused”. Mine must have been one of the few negative assessments. The...