Intended primarily for American college students up to undergraduate level, this new encyclopedia is truly international in scope and monumental in scale. Hacht and Hayes, aided by an advisory board of four other educators, including a librarian, have selected some 530 writers from 72 countries for their “specific contribution to world literature”; the authors' ability, that is, to affect readers beyond their individual national culture of origin. Despite being produced in the USA, the Gale Contextual Encyclopedia is distinctive in largely eschewing the literature of that nation (there is a companion volume for the USA which will also be reviewed in these columns). Only a dozen entries are devoted to American authors, and while T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein, for example, are accorded due attention, familiar figures in the literary canon like Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck and even Ernest Hemingway – who famously spent a significant period of his life in Europe – are strikingly absent. Clearly, the project has been designed to foster study and stimulate discussion on a much broader canvass than any domestic literary curriculum. The result of the team's labours is extremely well‐organized, if a little marred by a number of minor errors.
The introduction and other prefatory and concluding features such as indexes are repeated in each of the four volumes. This repetition obviously increases the bulk and page count of the whole, but aids navigation and quick reference for the reader. For each volume, a two‐page chronology, covering four thousand years of significant developments in the written word from the appearance of the Epic of Gilgamesh in c.2100 BCE, prefaces the encyclopedia entries proper. This is a useful addition for context, but could be criticised for being simply too brief and, inevitably, too selective: for instance, Shakespeare's birth date is duly mentioned, but not the first edition of Paradise Lost or Samuel Johnson's Dictionary.
Organization of the entries themselves is exemplary. It is pleasing that a photograph or likeness of the subject, albeit usually undated, is included for almost all of them. Each essay is an economical length, typically four pages, and begins with a list of key facts relating to the author: dates and location of birth and death; nationality; genre(s) worked in, and a list of key works, with dates of first publication given in parentheses. An introductory paragraph is followed by three main analytical sections. The first is a biographical summary, aiming to show how life events shaped a writer's work. The second examines how their work fits within wider literary contexts – for instance the place of Mary Shelley's novels within both Gothic and science fiction. Lastly, a survey of contemporary and/or subsequent critical appraisal of the author is given. Subheadings are present throughout, in bold italic, which aids quick scanning considerably.
In keeping with the encyclopedia's pedagogic purpose, there then follows a list of suggested tasks for writing and group discussion, and each essay concludes with a bibliography of suggested further reading, clearly divided between monographs, periodicals and online resources. These resources err towards general studies of the author rather than more recent or specialised scholarship devoted to details of specific works. They also tend towards brevity; usually less than a dozen sources – with the exception of the entry on Fyodor Dostoevsky, who for some reason is accorded over 60. Additional features include a sidebar listing an author's prominent literary and historical contemporaries – another useful contextual framing device – and one devoted to Common Human Experience, giving examples of literary or artistic works by others which share the subject's distinctive themes or techniques. The encyclopedia is also efficiently cross‐referenced – for instance one is successfully directed to the entry for George Orwell from Blair, Eric – although little cross‐referencing is given within individual entries.
As inferred, the historical and geographical scales dealt with are also extremely impressive. Subjects range from Homer to J.K. Rowling, Marjane Satrapi and Hari Kunzru (the latter two born in 1969), and are drawn from six continents. This makes for fascinating browsing, and a casual reader is bound to encounter a writer new to him or her. However, from at least an English literature graduate's perspective, there have been some bizarre editorial choices. Kingsley Amis has been accorded an entry but not his son, Martin, and one could query the inclusion of, say, James Herriot or Dick Francis at his expense. George Bernard Shaw and Robert Louis Stevenson are listed as “British” when they are normally recognised as being Irish and Scottish respectively. David Copperfield, Dickens' own favourite amongst his novels and famous the world over, is omitted from the list of his major works and given scant attention. There is the odd glaring error: Saki was not French, and W. Somerset Maugham attended the King's School in Canterbury, England, not (as given here) “Cambridge”. Elsewhere authors' dates are occasionally given incorrectly, as with J.R.R. Tolkien – who would have assumed a university lectureship at the age of four if we accepted his entry here as authoritative. Tighter proofreading would have helped remove these infelicities.
The entries are followed by a glossary of some 75 critical terms such as enjambment and picaresque. This is an excellent introduction for students, and the only caveat is that it could have been expanded to introduce concepts in theory, like structuralism, but this arguably falls outside the book's strict remit. Each volume concludes with a single, 52‐page index of authors, works, genres and themes. This is extremely comprehensive, with titles of works, in italics, listed both under authors' names and separately with writers' names in parentheses. Main entries are clearly indicated by recording volume number and page references in bold. There is also some cross‐referencing: for example from Auschwitz the searcher is also directed to Nazi Concentration Camp.
Overall, this Contextual Encyclopedia is a superb introduction to the wealth and diversity of world literature for school and college students – both within and beyond the US – and for the general reader. It cannot hope to be comprehensive in range given its subject, and is not suitable for the needs of advanced scholars. There are some factual errors which one hopes can be corrected in any future edition. Nevertheless, as it is this encyclopedia is certainly handsome, well‐illustrated and well indexed. Price places it beyond the means of most students, but it will be an invaluable addition for libraries serving institutions that teach literature to undergraduate level.
