Chapter 13. English Literature

The Oxford History of English Literature (OHEL). Ed. F. P. Wilson et al. 15 vols. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1945–97. PR823.09 820.9.

In 1990 Oxford University Press needlessly complicated the lives of researchers and bibliographers by reprinting, without revision but with new volume numbers and titles, 14 of the published volumes:

A traditional history of English literature, with each volume by a distinguished scholar. Most volumes open with a chapter on the social, scientific, political, and religious background; examine major and minor writers; include a chronology (with sections for public events, literary history, verse, prose, and drama); and conclude with a highly selective bibliography (with sections for reference works, collections and anthologies, literary history and criticism, studies of topics and subjects, background studies, and authors). Indexed by persons, anonymous works, and a few subjects. Although their bibliographies are dated in varying degrees, many volumes rank among the better histories of their respective periods; a few are classics (especially those by Bush and Lewis); but others have met with a mixed reception (such as those by Dobrée and Butt) or are clearly inadequate (such as those by Stewart and Renwick). See the individual entries for fuller discussions of volumes not superseded by Oxford English Literary History (see below). The manifold inadequacies of the original vol. 12 are detailed in the review by Robert Martin Adams, Hudson Review 16.4 (1963–64): 594–600.

To replace OHEL, Oxford University Press is publishing the Oxford English Literary History:

While each volume “offers an individual scholar’s vision of a discrete period of literary history,” all give attention to the institutions associated with literary creation, forms and genres, and “the relationship between literature and broader historical continuities and transformations.” The selective bibliographies that conclude each volume vary substantially in their quality: some (e.g., Simpson) are little more than inadequate—and sometimes untrustworthy—lists of editions and studies; others (e.g., Davis) offer fuller, evaluative guides to further reading. Indexed by persons and subjects.

Some of the individual chapters in the Cambridge History of English Literature (CHEL), ed. A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller, 15 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1907–27; online as The Cambridge History of English and American Literature [http://www.bartleby.com/cambridge]), have never been completely superseded, although the work as a whole is outdated. George Sampson, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, rev. R. C. Churchill, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970; 976 pp.), is a revised digest of CHEL that extends coverage to the mid-twentieth century for British literature and adds discussions of Commonwealth and American literature (through James).

Baugh, Albert C., ed. A Literary History of England. 2nd ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. 1,605 pp. PR83.B3 820.9.

A traditional history in four books written (and then updated with bibliographical supplements) by eminent scholars: Kemp Malone and Albert C. Baugh, the Middle Ages (to 1500); Tucker Brooke, Renaissance (1500–1660), supplemented by Matthias A. Shaaber; George Sherburn, Restoration and eighteenth century (1660–1789), supplemented by Donald F. Bond; Samuel C. Chew, nineteenth century and after (1789–1939), supplemented by Richard D. Altick. The second edition reprints with minor corrections the text of the 1948 edition with bibliographical supplements at the back. Indexed by authors and titles. Although dated in many respects, the work is still the best single-volume history of English literature. Review: René Wellek, Modern Philology 47.1 (1949): 39–45.

New Oxford History of England. Ed. J. M. Roberts. 16 vols. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1989– .

A general history of England that focuses on the political but that also treats, as the period demands, military, demographic, cultural, religious, economic, and governmental topics. Each volume concludes with a chronology, selective bibliography, and an index of persons and subjects. Review: (Hilton) Rohan McWilliam, Journal of Victorian Culture 15.1 (2010): 164–67. New Oxford History of England is gradually superseding the following:

A general economic, social, political, and military history. Individual volumes are variously organized, but each includes a selective bibliography, maps, and an index of persons and subjects.

The Victoria History of the Counties of England (Victoria County History, VCH). Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer for Inst. of Hist. Research, 1900– . DA670 942. <http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk>.

A collaborative history, with several volumes devoted to each county. Among the topics covered are the physical environment; prehistory; archaeology; schools; industries; sports and pastimes; topography (with descriptions of manors, estates, and other places); and natural, political, social, and economic history. Some volumes have an index of persons, places, and subjects; a cumulative index is planned for each county when all the volumes are published. The quality of the essays varies considerably, but coverage has generally become more thorough over the years; however, there is no consistency in the publication schedule of volumes for each county. Although frequently pedestrian, the volumes offer an incomparable accumulation of local history. The General Introduction, ed. R. B. Pugh (1970; 282 pp.), and Supplement, ed. C. R. Elrington (1990; 67 pp.), offer a thorough discussion of the origin and history of the project; an overview of changes in titles, publishers, and printers; and a detailed list of contents of all volumes published by 1990. For the status of the work on each county and links to volumes and drafts available online, consult the Victoria County History Web site.

For a county-by-county survey of histories, see English County Histories: A Guide: A Tribute to C. R. Elrington, ed. C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis (Stroud: Sutton, 1994; 483 pp.).

Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Ed. Michael Cox. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Z2011.O98 016.82. CD-ROM.

A selected chronological record of printed works authored, for the most part, by British writers and printed between 1474 and 2000 in Britain, but the approximately 4,000 individuals include some foreign authors who made their home in the British Isles, some colonial writers who were published primarily by British publishers, and some postcolonial writers influential in the United Kingdom. The focus is imaginative writing, but some translations, periodicals, works for children, and nonfictional works are admitted (by the editor’s count, there are approximately “30,000 works—over 11,000 works of fiction, nearly 6,000 poetry titles, 2,500 dramatic works, and over 6,500 works of non-fiction”). Entries are organized chronologically by date of publication (which can differ from the imprint date and, sometimes substantially, from date of composition), then alphabetically (first by title of anonymous works, then by author); a typical entry includes date of birth (and date of death if the work was published posthumously), category (e.g., fiction, prose satire, verse), title, imprint, and a note (including, e.g., date of first performance for a play, bibliographical information, names of illustrators, references to later editions, or cross-references to related works). Three indexes: authors (with titles listed chronologically under each); titles; translated authors (with titles listed chronologically under each).

Although a work that is so catholic in its scope will always invite carping over who or what did or did not survive the editorial delete key, coverage seems even-handed and representative. Users must remember, however, that titles and bibliographical information are not based on copies in hand.

A substantially expanded successor to Annals of English Literature, 1475–1950: The Principal Publications of Each Year Together with an Alphabetical Index of Authors with Their Works, [ed. R. W. Chapman and W. K. Davin], 2nd ed. rpt. with corrections (Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1965; 380 pp.), Oxford Chronology of English Literature is the best print-based resource for placing a work in its literary milieu, tracing changes in reading tastes, and charting more clearly the outlines of a literary period; however, the chronological sorting capabilities of several electronic databases (e.g., English Short Title Catalogue [M1377]) can provide a much more detailed conspectus of the print record for many periods.

Handbook of British Chronology. 3rd ed., corr. Ed. E. B. Fryde et al. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 605 pp. Royal Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks 2. DA34.P6 942.002.

A chronology of rulers, officers of state, archbishops, and bishops to 1985 and of peers, parliaments, and church councils for earlier periods. Entries are organized in six divisions: rulers (by country, with details of “parentage, birth, accession, death [or removal], marriage and issue” as well as changes in titles and regents); officers of state (by country, office, then ruler, with dates of assumption and demission); archbishops and bishops (by country, see, then date of accession); dukes, marquesses, and earls (by country, then title, but covering only 1066 to 1714 for England); English and British parliaments and related assemblies to 1832; and provincial and national councils of the church in England, c. 600–1536. An introduction to each division (and to many sections) fully explains content, organization, limitations, and sources. Although access is hampered by the lack of an index and information is provisional for the period to 1066, the Handbook is the standard chronology and an indispensable source for dating documents.

Equally important for dating documents is A Handbook of Dates for Students of British History, ed. C. R. Cheney, new ed. rev. Michael Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000; 246 pp.; Royal Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks 4), which provides tables listing rulers of England and regnal years, popes, saints’ days and festivals, law terms, and dates of Easter.

Sec. F: Guides to Manuscripts and Archives.

Storey and Madden, Primary Sources for Victorian Studies (M2450).

The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (CBEL). 3rd ed. 6 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Z2001.N45 [PR83] 016.82. (Cambridge UP has suspended publication; no other volumes will appear.)

More a reconceptualization than a revision of NCBEL (M1385), CBEL was to focus on primary works, textual and bibliographical studies, biographies, the initial reception of an author’s works, and critical studies before 1920. For many authors and subjects, it would have offered the fullest information available on primary works, but the general exclusion of post-1920 secondary works (based on the unfounded assumption that such studies are adequately covered and easily identified in MLAIB [G335] and ABELL [G340]) meant that CBEL—unlike NCBEL—would no longer be one of the principal starting points for research.

English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC; EngSTC); formerly The Eighteenth-Century Short-Title Catalogue. British Lib.–U of California, Riverside, 2010. 12 Nov. 2012. <http://estc.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-estc>. Updated daily. <http://estc.ucr.edu>; <http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/catblhold/estcintro/estcintro.html>.

A bibliographic database and union list of editions; issues; impressions; and variant states of books, serials, pamphlets, bookplates, and single sheets printed in any language in the British Isles (including those with false London imprints), North America, and British territories (for a list, see Michael S. Smith, comp., The English and British Empires, c. 1497–1800 [http://estc.ucr.edu/britem.html]) and printed entirely or partly in English, Irish, Welsh, or Gaelic throughout the rest of the world between c. 1473 and 1800. Excludes most engraved single sheets without letterpress (unless the text is significant), forms intended to be completed in manuscript, trade cards, tickets, playbills, concert and theater programs, playing cards, maps, and games. The database includes records of the North American Imprints Program (Q4010) as well as expanded, edited RSTC (M1990) and Wing (M1995) entries.

A typical record includes author; title; edition; imprint; pagination; illustrations; format; notes on authorship, language, type of work, and content (if not clear from the title) and bibliographical and publication details; references to other bibliographies; identification of microform copies; and locations (with call number or shelf mark and notes on provenance or imperfections); many records also include a subject field. The amount of detail and degree of bibliographical sophistication vary; many records taken over from RSTC and Wing are placeholders that will eventually be expanded. Users should be aware that information included in entries is frequently not precise enough to identify reprints and variant issues, that many titles for eighteenth-century publications are not fully recorded (but full transcriptions are being added), and that the list of locations of copies is frequently seriously incomplete. For an informative analysis of the errors and omissions in records for eighteenth-century publications, see James E. May, “Who Will Edit the ESTC? (and Have You Checked OCLC Lately?),” Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography ns 12.3-4 (2001): 288–304. For a convenient summary of cataloging practices, see R. C. Alston, The First Phase: An Introduction to the Catalogue of the British Library Collections for ESTC, Occasional Paper 4, Factotum: Newsletter of the XVIIIth Century STC (London: British Lib., 1983; 29 pp.); fuller details are provided in J. C. Zeeman, The Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue: The Cataloguing Rules, 1991 ed. (London: British Lib., 1991; 140 pp.).

Basic Search allows users to search by keyword, author, title, place of publication, publisher, date, subject (i.e., Library of Congress subject heading), shelf mark, library, or ESTC number. Advanced Search allows users to combine the preceding fields with ones for language, genre, notes, and format and to restrict searches by language, date, format, and country of publication. Users can also browse lists of authors, titles, places of publication, subjects, genres, shelf marks, and libraries. Up to 1,000 results, which are listed in ascending order by title then by date of publication, can be sorted by author or date and can be marked for e-mailing, printing, downloading, or moving to a personal folder at the site. (If a search returns more than 1,000 records, only the first 1,000 will appear in ESTC number order and cannot be re-sorted.) Searchers should consult the most recent help screen for search instructions. The guides published by ESTC—M. J. Crump, Searching ESTC on Blaise-Line: A Brief Guide, Occasional Paper 6, Factotum: Newsletter of the XVIIIth Century STC (London: British Lib., 1989; 37 pp.); and John Bloomberg-Rissman, Searching ESTC on RLIN, Factotum: Newsletter of the English STC, Incorporating the XVIIIth Century STC (1996; 22 pp.; Occasional Paper 7; also available at the project’s Web site [http://estc.ucr.edu/factotum.html]); and Searching the ESTC (http://estc.ucr.edu/estcsrch.html)—are obsolete.

A portion of the database was published as The Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue 1990 (ESTC 1990) (London: British Lib., 1990; microfiche), an author-title list of about 284,000 entries from the database, with indexes for date and place of publication and five types of publications (advertisements, almanacs, directories, prospectuses, and single-sheet verse); the 2003 CD-ROM has about 465,000 records. On the vagaries of the search interface for the 2003 CD-ROM, see the review by E. Thomson Shields, Jr., Early Modern Literary Studies 10.3 (M2005): 9 pars. <http://purl.oclc.org/emls/10-3/revshiel.html>.

Factotum: Newsletter of the English STC, Incorporating the XVIIIth Century STC (1978–95) carried progress reports as well as notes derived from research in ESTC records; for an index see http://estc.ucr.edu/factotum_index.html. (From 1978 to 1980, ESTC Facsimile: The Newsletter of the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue in America recorded the progress of the North American group.) For a history of the project and examples of research based on ESTC, see M. Crump and M. Harris, eds., Searching the Eighteenth Century: Papers Presented at the Symposium on the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue in July 1982 (London: British Lib. in association with Dept. of Extra-mural Studies, U of London, 1983; 104 pp.) and Henry L. Snyder and Michael S. Smith, eds., The English Short-Title Catalogue: Past, Present, Future (New York: AMS, 2003; 290 pp.). Alston also recounts the history of the project in “The History of ESTC,” Age of Johnson 15 (2004): 269–329.

The ESTC is the most sophisticated and accessible of the short-title catalogs, and supplants—but does not supersede—RSTC and Wing. Since the database can be searched in a variety of ways and is continually updated to reflect corrections and additions, it is an important source for identifying extant works by an author, about a topic, or published within a time period and for locating copies. A major international cooperative project that has already unearthed a number of unknown works and unrecorded editions, the ESTC is effecting a revolution in all areas of pre-nineteenth-century studies, and it has precipitated similar projects such as the ISTC (M1820a). Users must, however, be aware that the disparate nature of the records brought together in this database means that there are substantial inconsistencies and hundreds of errors (for which, see the exchange of letters between Peter W. M. Blayney and Henry L. Snyder and M. J. Crump in Library 7th ser. 1.1 [2000]: 72–78). For important strictures on using ESTC records for 1475–1700, see William Proctor Williams and William Baker, ““ Caveat Lector, English Books 1475–1700 and the Electronic Age”,” Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography ns 12.1 (2001): 1–29. For suggestions on how this continually evolving database could be improved, see Stephen Tabor, “ESTC and the Bibliographical Community,” Library 7th ser. 8.4 (2007): 367–86.

“Records of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers”. Stationers’ Hall, London EC4M 7DD. <http://www.stationers.org/>.

The records, which date from 1554, are in three main groups: the court books (valuable for biographical research on printers and publishers and essential sources for publishing history); miscellaneous documents; and—of primary interest to literary researchers—the registers of printed books, usually called the Stationers’ Register (SR). The registers are virtually complete for 1554–1911, when compulsory registration halted. For 1554–1708, the registers consist of works entered for ownership by a member of the company; for 1710–1911, of works entered for copyright. The so-called voluntary register (1920–2000) is not available to researchers. Arranged chronologically, the registers identify the member claiming ownership or copyright, title (frequently descriptive in the early registers), author (but infrequently in the early years), and registration fee.

The registers for 1554–1842 and other records of the company are available to researchers at Stationers’ Hall (by appointment only); the registers for 1842–1911 are held by the National Archives (F285). In addition, many records can be consulted in microfilm (Robin Myers, ed., Records of the Stationers’ Company, 1554–1920 [Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1987]) or in various published transcripts:

Review: (microfilm) Michael Robertson, Microform Review 20 (1991): 85–88.

Since the records are the property of the company, scholars should seek permission to cite them in books and articles.

Essential reading for those consulting the records is Robin Myers, The Stationers’ Company Archive: An Account of the Records, 1554–1984 (Winchester: St. Paul’s Bibliographies; Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1990; 376 pp.), which offers a brief history of the archives, an essential glossary, an analytical catalog of records in the muniment room (together with references to editions, indexes, and published commentary), and registers of documents (together with a name index). For a history of the company, see Cyprian Blagden, The Stationers’ Company: A History, 1403–1959 (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1960; 321 pp.), portions of which are superseded by The Stationers’ Company: A History of the Later Years, 1800–2000, ed. Robin Myers (London: Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, 2001; 265 pp.), and Peter W. M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company before the Charter, 1403–1557 (London: Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspapermakers [sic], 2003; 62 pp.).

Researchers must remember that the registers are records of ownership or copyright by members of the company and thus do not include everything actually printed or published in England and that many works entered were never published or appeared under a different title. See entry M2000 for a further discussion of problems in the use of the early registers. The records—many of which await adequate exploration—are essential sources for identifying lost works, aiding in dating composition or publication, and researching all aspects of printing or publishing history.

Greenblatt, Stephen, and Giles Gunn, eds. Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies. New York: MLA, 1992. 595 pp. PR21.R43 820.9′0001.

A collection of surveys of conceptual, methodological, and theoretical shifts since the 1960s in literary studies. Essays—which typically examine significant developments in the field, comment on major studies, and conclude with a selective annotated bibliography—cover historical periods in English and American literature; composition studies; and feminist, gender, African American, Marxist, psychoanalytic, deconstruction, new historicist, cultural, and postcolonial criticism (but not textual criticism). The omission of a subject index is inexplicable in a volume devoted to shifts and interdisciplinarity in literary studies; limiting the index to persons makes it impossible to use the collection to trace across periods or critical schools the effects of a methodology, concept, approach, ideology, or critical school. Despite this drawback, the volume does offer a convenient overview of the evolution of literary studies from the 1960s to the early 1990s.

The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). Ed. George Watson and I. R. Willison. 5 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969–77. Z2011.N45 [PR83] 016.82.

A selective, but extensive, bibliography of works by and about “literary authors native to or mainly resident in the British Isles” from the Old English period through those established by 1950. Because of the scope, coverage of scholarship is necessarily selective and excludes unpublished dissertations, ephemeral publications, encyclopedia articles, insignificant notes, and superseded studies. Parts of books are omitted from the lists of secondary materials, thus leading researchers to overlook important studies. Otherwise, the thoroughness of coverage and terminal date (from c. 1962 to 1969) vary widely from section to section, with only extended use revealing how adequate an individual part is.

Entries are organized by literary period and then by six major divisions (each extensively subdivided and classified as its subject and the period require): introduction, poetry, novel, drama, prose, and Scottish or Anglo-Irish. For a fuller account of the organization of each period, see entries for the individual volumes.

Listings under individual authors are divided into bibliographies, collections, primary works, and secondary materials. Headnotes sometimes locate manuscripts or unique items. The full entry for an author who writes in several genres appears under the genre with which he or she is most closely associated; briefer entries emphasizing primary works usually appear under other genres or forms. Since these entries are not always cross-referenced, users must check the index volume (vol. 5) to locate all listings for an author. In the various subdivisions and author entries, primary and secondary works are listed chronologically by date of publication. Editions and translations follow, in chronological order, a primary work. When a list of secondary materials includes more than one study by a scholar, the chronological sequence is unnecessarily violated by grouping all the studies under the earliest publication date of those cited. This practice, which requires considerable backtracking in lengthy lists (since scholars are not indexed), is almost universally condemned by reviewers and users.

Scholars are identified by surname and initial(s); titles are short titles, with only the first word capitalized and no designation of a title within a title; bibliographical information is incomplete. Although these conventions save space and create an uncluttered page, they also frequently prolong searches in library catalogs and volumes of journals.

The index (vol. 5) lists literary authors, major anonymous works, and some headings for subdivisions but is insufficiently detailed to provide adequate access to the wealth of information in vols. 1–4. To be certain of locating all sections on an author, form, or genre, users must consult vol. 5 rather than the provisional index in each volume. Entrants are also indexed in Biography and Genealogy Master Index (J565).

Although NCBEL is a revision of The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (CBEL), ed. F. W. Bateson, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1940), and Supplement, ed. George Watson (1957), CBEL is still occasionally useful for its sections on political and social background and Commonwealth literature dropped from NCBEL. See the entries on individual volumes for details of differences in coverage. For a discussion of the significance and history of CBEL and NCBEL, see George Watson, CBEL: The Making of the Cambridge Bibliography (Los Angeles: School of Lib. Service, U of California, 1965; 13 pp.).

NCBEL, despite its unevenness, errors, inconsistencies, and deficiencies in organization, remains frequently the best starting point for research, especially for authors, forms, genres, and subjects that are not themselves subjects of bibliographies.

Reviews: (vol. 1) Fred C. Robinson, Anglia 97.3 (1979): 511–17; (vol. 2) TLS: Times Literary Supplement 15 Oct. 1971: 1296; Eric Rothstein, Modern Philology 71.2 (1973): 176–86; (vol. 3) Richard D. Altick, JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 70.1 (1971): 139–45; (vol. 4) TLS: Times Literary Supplement 29 Dec. 1972: 1582; T. A. Birrell, Neophilologus 59.2 (1975): 306–15.

Addressed to the student and general reader, The Shorter New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, ed. Watson (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981; 1,612 cols.), emphasizes the traditional canon of English literature by reprinting, with few changes, the sections on primary works by major authors and several minor ones, listing only a very few basic studies about each author, and completely cutting or severely trimming other sections. Although the Shorter NCBEL includes a few additions and corrections, it is, as Peter Davison points out in his review, “an unimaginative scissors-and-paste job which shows little thought for the needs of” its intended audience (Library 6th ser. 4.2 [1982]: 188–89).

Oxford Bibliographies Online: British and Irish Literature. Ed. Andrew Hadfield. Oxford UP, 2009– . 15 Jan. 2015. <http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/british-and-irish-literature>.

Oxford Bibliographies Online are peer-reviewed, concisely annotated, expertly selected bibliographic citations. Each of the articles within a bibliography, written by scholars in the field, consists of an introduction that covers the history behind the field or subfield, followed by a categorized list of useful academic publications (e.g., introductions, textbooks, journals, handbooks and guides, reference works, primary texts or documents) and sections on debates and controversies, criticism, genres, and more. The lists of citations are highly selective, chosen to represent the best scholarship in a given field. Some articles include links to full text or Web content.

British and Irish Literature includes articles covering such topics as 1916; Anglo-Irish poetry, 1500–1800; John Gower; Charles and Mary Lamb; coffeehouse; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Tobias Smollett; and Robin Hood literature.

Content is browsable, and users can search the database with the option of limiting by resource type. Searches can be saved, and users can receive e-mails alerting them to new additions.

Baer, Florence E. Folklore and Literature of the British Isles: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1986. 355 pp. Garland Reference Lib. of the Humanities 622: Garland Folklore Bibliogs. 11. Z2014.F6 B34 [PR149.F64] 016.82′09.

A bibliography of studies that discuss folklore elements in literary works written in English in the British Isles. Baer includes scholarly and popular studies (all but a few in English and published between 1890 and 1980) as well as dissertations after 1950 but excludes most of the standard reference works. Listed alphabetically by scholar, the 1,039 entries are accompanied by descriptive annotations offering clear, informative summaries that isolate significant elements of a study; cite tale types, motifs, or Child numbers for ballads; provide appropriate cross-references; and sometimes include an astute evaluation. Because of the organization, users must approach the contents through the detailed general index, which covers literary and folklore genres, literary authors, titles, subjects, theoretical approaches, and theorists. Three additional indexes cover tale types, folklore motifs, and Child ballad numbers. Although the work is not comprehensive, the careful annotations and thorough indexing make it a valuable, time-saving source for identifying studies of the folklore content and relationships of British literature. Until MLAIB for 1981 (G335), such studies are not easily identified in the standard serial bibliographies and indexes in section G.

Howard, Patsy C., comp. Theses in English Literature, 1894–1970. Ann Arbor: Pierian, 1973. 387 pp. Z2011.H63 [PR83] 016.82.

A list of baccalaureate and master’s theses accepted by American and some foreign institutions. Includes a limited number of institutions (whether completely is unclear) and apparently only theses on an identifiable author. Entries are organized alphabetically under literary authors. Cross-references identify studies of multiple authors. Two indexes: subject (inadequate); thesis author. Although marred by an insufficient explanation of scope and coverage, Theses in English Literature will save some hunting through elusive institutional lists. A companion volume is devoted to Theses in American Literature (Q3315).

Bibliography of British and Irish History. Brepolis. Royal Historical Soc., Inst. of Historical Research, and Brepols, 2001. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://apps.brepolis.net/BrepolisPortal/default.aspx>. Updated three times a year.

A bibliographic database of historical writings about the British Isles (including their relations with the British Empire and Commonwealth) from 55 BC to the present. Coverage is more complete for publications after 1900 than before. The database incorporates and supersedes the following:

In addition, the database includes pre-1901 publications listed in Graves, Bibliography of English History to 1485 (M1845); Read, Bibliography of British History: Tudor Period, 1485–1603 (M2050); Davies, Bibliography of British History: Stuart Period, 1603–1714 (M2045); Pargellis and Medley, Bibliography of British History: The Eighteenth Century, 1714–1789 (M2260); Brown and Christie, Bibliography of British History, 1789–1851 (M2515); and Hanham, Bibliography of British History, 1851–1914 (M2520).

Simple Search allows a keyword, author, title, or index term search to be limited by date. Advanced Search allows users to combine the following fields: keyword, author, title, journal or series title, date of publication, index term, subject, place-name, person as subject, and period covered. Records, which can be sorted by author, title, or date (ascending or descending), can be downloaded or e-mailed. Bibliography of British and Irish History offers the most current list of publications on British history and is useful for literature researchers because of its inclusion of several literary studies from periodicals not covered by the standard bibliographies and indexes in section G.

Alston, R. C., comp. A Bibliography of the English Language from the Invention of Printing to the Year 1800: A Systematic Record of Writings on English, and on Other Languages in English, Based on the Collections of the Principal Libraries of the World. 22 vols. N.p.: Privately printed, 1965– . Z2015.A1 A4.

(The compiler’s annotated copies of vols. 1–10 were reprinted, without the facsimiles, in a single volume [Ilkley: Janus, 1974]. The corrections and additions are incorporated into the printed supplement to the first ten volumes.)

A massive bibliography of English-language works through 1800 related to the history of the English language. Works are organized by publication date within various subject classifications; subsequent editions follow, in chronological order, the first. A typical entry provides author, short title, publication information, format, pagination, citations to standard bibliographies, locations, references to important scholarship and contemporary reviews, and occasional notes on content. Most volumes print several facsimiles of title pages and other printed material. Each volume has up to four indexes: titles; authors; subjects and other persons; places (however, indexing is less thorough in recent volumes). Based on research in an extensive number of libraries, Alston is an indispensable guide to the identification and location of works essential for the study of the early history of the English language. Review: (rpt. of vols. 1–10) TLS: Times Literary Supplement 8 Nov. 1974: 1267.

Alston supersedes (for publications before 1800) Arthur G. Kennedy, A Bibliography of Writings on the English Language from the Beginning of Printing to the End of 1922 (Cambridge: Harvard UP; New Haven: Yale UP, 1927; 517 pp.). For extensive additions and corrections to Kennedy, see the following reviews: Arvid Gabrielson, ““Professor Kennedy’s Bibliography of Writings on the English Language: A Review with a List of Additions and Corrections”,” Studia Neophilologica 2.2 (1929): 117–68; Rudolph Brotanek, “Englische Sprachbücher aus frühneuenglischer Zeit,” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 4.1 (1956): 5–18; and Hermann M. Flasdieck, Anglia Beiblatt 39.6 (1928): 166–74.

Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED Online). Oxford University Press. Oxford UP, 2013. 29 Aug. 2013. <http://www.oed.com>. Updated quarterly.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Ed. J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. 2nd ed. 20 vols. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1989. CD-ROM. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. Simpson and Weiner. New ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. (A micrographic reprint of the second edition; a third edition is in progress; a draft of the preface is at the OED Web site.) PE1625.O87 423.

Oxford English Dictionary Additions. Ed. Simpson and Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1993– .

An integrated expansion of the following:

A historical dictionary that attempts to record all English words (including obsolete ones, dialect terms before 1500, and archaisms, as well as a considerable number of scientific, technical, and slang terms) used since c. 1150. Words obsolete by 1150 and dialect terms new after 1500 are excluded. Although the OED emphasizes standard British usage and vocabulary, it admits meanings and senses used in English worldwide (especially for words added in the Supplement and second edition). The entries for more than 600,000 words are based on several million excerpts from written works (a majority of which are belles lettres).

The best access to the OED is offered by OED Online, which allows parallel searching of the text of the second edition and the database containing additions and revisions for the third edition; searches display a link to earlier versions of revised entries. Quick Search allows keyword searching of main entries (including phrases and compounds). In Advanced Search, users can restrict searches of full entries, quotations, headwords, lemmas, definitions, or etymologies to parts of an entry, a subject, language of origin, region, usage (e.g., archaic), date, part of speech, and entry letter or range of letters; most of the preceding options have a pull-down menu or are linked to a list. In addition, users can browse the dictionary alphabetically or by category (subject, usage, region, or language of origin), timeline, or sources; Browse is also linked to Kay et al., Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (M1420). Entries consist of two parts: the headword section (which includes status [e.g., obsolete], pronunciation, variant spellings, etymology, and label indicating context in which the word is used); the sense section (which includes definitions that list quotations in which the word appears, compound forms, and derivatives). Entries can be printed, e-mailed, or saved to a personal account. Many entries are linked to earlier versions and other dictionaries. To search the OED Online efficiently and thoroughly, users must read the Help page.

For an examination of the post-1928 evolution of the OED see Charlotte Brewer, Treasure House of the Language: The Living OED (New Haven: Yale UP, 2007; 334 pp.), and the author’s Web site, Examining the OED (http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main). For an overview of the principles guiding the revision of the etymology and other linguistic elements appearing in brackets at the beginning of an entry, see Philip N. R. Durkin, ““Root and Branch: Revising the Etymological Component of the Oxford English Dictionary ”,” Transactions of the Philological Society 97.1 (1999): 1–49; for a critique of the plan to rely on MED (M1860) and DOST (O3090a) for Middle English etymologies, see William Rothwell, ““ OED, MED, AND: The Making of a New Dictionary of English”,” Anglia 119.4 (2002): 527–53; for changes in the use of literary works as sources of quotations, see Brewer, ““The Use of Literary Quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary”,” Review of English Studies 61.248 (2010): 93–125. For examples of the kind of revision being undertaken in the third edition, see John Simpson, Edmund Weiner, and P. Durkin, ““The Oxford English Dictionary Today”,” Transactions of the Philological Society 102.3 (2004): 335–91.

In the printed OED there are three classifications of headwords: main words (all single words, whether radical or derivative, as well as compounds requiring separate treatment), subordinate words (mostly obsolete and variant forms, irregular inflections, or alleged words), and combined forms. Entries for subordinate words and combinations typically refer users to related main words for fuller information. A typical entry for a main word consists of four parts: (1) identification, with the headword appearing in its current or most usual spelling, pronunciation, part of speech, any specification of vocation, status, earlier spellings (with indication of chronological range), and inflected forms; (2) morphology, with etymology, history of the form, and notes on the history of the word; (3) signification, with senses organized from the earliest to most recent; (4) dated illustrative quotations listed chronologically (averaging one per century for words in the first edition and one per decade for those added in the Supplement or later). Each grammatical form of a main word is accorded a separate entry. New entries (including headwords as well as new senses and collocations) are also recorded in Oxford English Dictionary Additions, each volume of which prints words from throughout the alphabet. Cumulatively indexed beginning with vol. 2.

The 1933 corrected reissue adds a supplement that records new words and senses, corrections, and spurious words and lists the sources of illustrative quotations. Except for the list of sources, the 1933 supplement is superseded by the four-volume Supplement, which records new words or senses since 1884–1928 to 1965–85 (depending on when the part of the alphabet was sent to the printer), includes several words (especially “taboo” terms) and senses omitted from or overlooked in the original volumes and offers more substantial coverage of colloquialisms and English outside the British Isles. The necessity of having the original volumes in hand for effective use of the Supplement is remedied by the second edition, which integrates (but does not correct or revise) the original volumes and Supplement, adds 5,000 new words or senses, and converts Murray’s phonetic system to the International Phonetic Alphabet. (For an explanation of the phonetic theory behind and practice in the original edition and Supplement, see M. K. C. MacMahon, ““James Murray and the Phonetic Notation in the New English Dictionary ”,” Transactions of the Philological Society 83.1 [1985]: 72–112.)

To make effective use of the OED users must study the introductory explanation (in the 1933 reissue, Supplement, second edition, and OED Online) of principles of compilation and editorial practices and must keep in mind the following points:

For a detailed critique of the unreliability of readers, selection of source material, and editorial processing of data from readers in the first edition and Supplement and of the implications of merging first-edition entries unrevised into the second edition, see Brewer, ““The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary”,” Review of English Studies ns 44.175 (1993): 313–42. Users should also consult John Willinsky, Empire of Words: The Reign of the OED (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994; 258 pp.), which explores the prejudices underlying the compilation and questions the assumptions behind the ongoing revision.

Novices—and those who have never bothered to read the introduction to the OED—will benefit from Donna Lee Berg, A Guide to the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993; 206 pp.), a remarkably clear guide to the parts and types of entries, with a glossary of terms used in and related to the dictionary.

One of the truly great dictionaries, the OED is an indispensable source for the historical study of the English language and for the explication of literary works. Reviews of Supplement: (vol. 1) Fred C. Robinson, Yale Review 62.3 (1973): 450–56; Donald B. Sands, College English 37.7 (1976): 710–18; (vol. 2) Robinson, Yale Review 67.1 (1977): 94–99; (vol. 3) Roy Harris, TLS: Times Literary Supplement 3 Sept. 1982: 935–36; Thomas M. Paikeday, American Speech 60.1 (1985): 74–79; (vol. 4) Pat Rogers, TLS: Times Literary Supplement 9 May 1986: 487–88; Gabriele Stein, Anglia 107.2 (1989): 482–91. Reviews of 2nd ed.: John Algeo, Transactions of the Philological Society 88.2 (1990): 131–50; Geoffrey Hill, TLS: Times Literary Supplement 21–27 Apr. 1989: 411–14; E. G. Stanley, Review of English Studies ns 41.161 (1990): 76–88 (with a rejoinder by I. S. Asquith, ns 42.165 [1991]: 81–82, and a reply by Stanley, 82–83). Reviews of 2nd ed. and CD-ROM: Andreas H. Jucker, Literary and Linguistic Computing 9.2 (1994): 149–54; Edward Mendelson, Yale Review 81.4 (1993): 111–23.

An informative and entertaining account of the inception, editing, and publication of OED is K. M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words: James A. H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary (New Haven: Yale UP, 1977; 386 pp.); an equally entertaining account of one individual’s contributions is Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (New York: Harper, 1998; 242 pp.). More scholarly are the essays in Mugglestone, ed., Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000; 288 pp.), which focus on the first edition. The best short history of the OED appears in three essays in The Oxford History of English Lexicography, ed. A. P. Cowie, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 2009): Mugglestone, “The Oxford English Dictionary” (230–59); Brewer, “The OED Supplements” (260–78); and Weiner, “The Electronic OED: The Computerization of a Historical Dictionary” (378–409).

In addition to those noted above, the following are important complementary works:

The English Dialect Dictionary: Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, or Known to Have Been in Use during the Last Two Hundred Years. Ed. Joseph Wright. 6 vols. London: Frowde; New York: Putnam’s, 1898–1905. (Originally issued in parts.) PE1766.W8.

EDD Online. Beta vers. Universität Innsbruck. Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Anglistik, 2011. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.uibk.ac.at/anglistik/projects/speed/>.

A dictionary of dialect terms (as distinct from those appearing in “the literary language”) and Americanisms used in Great Britain and Ireland. A typical entry consists of headword, geographic area, variant spellings, pronunciation, definitions organized by parts of speech, illustrative dated quotations taken from printed sources and organized by area, and etymology. Vol. 6 includes a supplement (179 pp.), bibliography of sources (59 pp.), and grammar of English dialect (187 pp.).

In the beta version of EDD Online, Simple Search allows users to filter headword or full-text searches by dialect area, usage label, part of speech, source, or etymology; Advanced Search allows users to restrict a search to definitions, compounds, citations, derivations, comments, combinations, variants, or phrases and to filter results as in Simple Search. Users can also browse an index of headwords. Results can be printed or exported.

On the genesis and uses of the Dictionary, see the essays in Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary and Beyond: Studies in Late Modern English Dialectology, ed. Manfred Markus, Clive Upton, and Reinhard Heuberger (Frankfurt: Lang, 2010; 271 pp.).

Although incomplete and dated, the work remains the fullest English dialect dictionary and, for literary scholars, an essential source for explicating dialect terms in English literature.

Two essential complements, both based on data collected for the Survey of English Dialects, are

Kay, Christian, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, and Irené Wotherspoon. Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary with Additional Material from A Thesaurus of Old English (HTOED). 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. PE1591.H55. (Available online through Oxford English Dictionary Online [M1410]. Updated quarterly.)

A historical thesaurus of the English language that includes Old and Middle English as well as rare and obsolete words and senses from modern English arranged according to sense and with synonymous forms dated and listed in chronological order. In each major section (the external world, the mental world, and the social world) words and phrases are organized by semantic categories and subcateogies (see the list on pp. xxix–xxx of vol. 1). Users should study carefully the guides to using the thesaurus (1: xxi–xxvii) and index (2: vii–ix) and note that the index excludes “words occurring only in Old English, those with no citations after 1399, and phrases of more than four words.” In the online version, users can browse headings or search by heading or word. Based on the OED (2nd ed. [M1410]), the additions to it, and A Thesaurus of Old English (M1707), HTOED is an invaluable resource for analyzing the semantic development of English, explicating literary works, and charting the history of ideas. For the scholar, it supersedes Roget’s International Thesaurus, ed. Barbara Ann Kipfer, 7th ed. (New York: Collins Reference–HarperCollins, 2010; 1,282 pp.). Reviews: Charlotte Brewer, Review of English Studies 61.252 (2010): 801–05; R. F. Ilson, International Journal of Lexicography 24.2 (2011): 241–60.

The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992. Ed. Dennis Griffiths. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992. 694 pp. PN5114.E53 072′.09.

An encyclopedia of representative national and local newspapers, journalists and other persons associated with newspapers, and “terms, ideas, places and events associated with the British press.” The approximately 3,000 entries are preceded by six historical overviews and followed by a chronology, circulation figures as of 1991, lists of women and Fleet Street editors, and miscellaneous brief essays on, for example, professional and trade organizations, the British Library Newspaper Library, newspaper collecting, and women in British journalism. Encyclopedia of the British Press is a convenient source for facts on all aspects of the British press (including addresses of current newspapers).

Linton, David, and Ray Boston, eds. The Newspaper Press in Britain: An Annotated Bibliography. London: Mansell, 1987. 361 pp. Z6956.G6 L56 [PN5114] 016.072.

A bibliography of published studies (through c. 1985), dissertations, theses, and a few manuscripts (although the latter are inadequately identified and unlocated). The approximately 2,900 entries are listed alphabetically by author. Unfortunately the citations do not record pagination for articles or essays in collections, there are inconsistencies in citation form, and many of the brief descriptive annotations fail to provide an adequate sense of contents. Two appendixes: a chronology of British newspaper history from 1476 through 1986; locations of papers and archives of newspapers and persons connected with the trade. Indexed by subjects (including newspapers). Although Newspaper Press in Britain is the fullest general list of scholarship on British newspapers, it omits numerous important studies, and the lack of a classified organization, frequently inadequate annotations, and insufficiently thorough subject indexing make the work far less accessible than it should be. Review: Donald Munro, Journal of Newspaper and Periodical History 3.3 (1987): 33–39.

Partially expanded by Linton, The Twentieth-Century Newspaper Press in Britain: An Annotated Bibliography (London: Mansell, 1994; 386 pp.). The 3,799 entries exclude studies in the 1987 volume published before 1900 and those concerned with only pre-twentieth-century topics. Coverage extends through 1994 (many of the most recent studies are relegated to the section “Late Entries”). Except for an initial section listing reference works, the organization is the same as the earlier volume’s; the chronology begins at 1900; and the appendix listing archives and collections of papers has disappeared. And Twentieth-Century Newspaper Press in Britain suffers the same shortcomings as its parent volume.

White, Robert B. The English Literary Journal to 1900: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit: Gale, 1977. 311 pp. Amer. Lit., English Lit., and World Lits. in English: An Information Guide Ser. 8. Z6956.G6 W47 [PN5114] 016.81′05.

An annotated bibliography of English-language studies (published between c. 1890 and c. 1973) and modern critical editions of literary periodicals. Entries are organized in five chapters: bibliographies, general studies, periodicals, persons (including authors), and places. Few annotations are adequately informative, and many entries are unannotated. Of the four indexes (authors, periodicals, persons, places), only the first is necessary; the others merely repeat classified listings without incorporating cross-references. Because the lack of clarity in the selection policy and definition of the term literary periodical results in considerable unevenness of coverage (which is more thorough for eighteenth- than nineteenth-century periodicals), White is little more than a place to begin research. For nineteenth-century periodicals, see Madden and Dixon, Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press (M2560). Reviews: Richard Haven, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 1.3 (1977): 250–55; Lionel Madden, Victorian Periodicals Newsletter 11.3 (1978): 108–10; Joanne Shattock, Yearbook of English Studies 10 (1980): 230–32.