The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English

by Ian Ousby and Margaret Atwood

Book Overview

The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English provides, in a single volume, the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of literature in English available today. Substantially enlarged and updated for this new edition, it covers all the major novelists, poets, and dramatists of the classical canon and of contemporary literature, from Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, and Conrad to Saul Bellow, Adrienne Rich, Les Murray, Wole Soyinka,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 052126751X
• ISBN13: 9780521267519
• Release Date: November 1988
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 1110 Pages
• Weight: 4.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.2" x 7.1" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Agatha Christie Meets Charles Dickens

Those two authors share space in this magnificent reference volume on English Literature. The sturdy, oversized Guide presents over one thousand pages of information on authors, novels, poetry, drama, and literary terms. There are interesting biographies of prominent writers and obscure ones, from Mrs. Humphrey Ward to William Faulkner. Good plot summaries are provided for a wide range of novels. If you are a fan of Anthony Trollope, you will find no less than twenty five of his books discussed. You have to be careful, however, if you are reading the plot of a book in order to decided whether or not you want to read it - the ending is always given away. The Cambridge Guide explores many literary terms: Meter; the Bloomsbury Group; positivism; and post-structuralism. There are also entries on Literary Journals - yes, the New York Review of Books is here as well as Granta. The Cambridge Guide is written for the average layman and avoids academic jargon. I decided to try the entry on "deconstruction" as the extreme test of explaining difficult concepts. It's hard to say: either they failed the test, or I failed it. This book has become one of my prized possessions, and I would have been willing to buy it at twice the price charged.

Excellent resource for teaching or taking college courses.

The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English provides a wide array of supplementary reading material to accompany lecture notes or for students to grasp overall concepts of a particular work, author, or literary movement.