Herman Melville is one of the most challenging authors of American literature. Known primarily as the author of Moby-Dick, he wrote several other novels, short stories, and poems. With the rise of interest in Melville in the 20th century, critical and biographical studies of Melville continue to be published at an ever-increasing rate. This encyclopedia is a comprehensive guide to Melville's rich and complex literary career. The volume includes several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for all of Melville's works and characters, and for his family members, friends, and acquaintances. Entries on the most important topics include bibliographies. The encyclopedia is more factual than critical, but scholarship from 1990 and beyond is emphasized throughout. The book also gives special attention to the 19th-century women who influenced Melville, for these women have often been overlooked. A chronology overviews the principal events in Melville's life, and a selected bibliography lists major studies.

This set treats the whole of American literature, from the European discovery of America to the present, with entries in alphabetical order. Each of the 350 substantive essays is a major interpretive contribution. Well-known critics and scholars provide clear and vividly written essays thatreflect the latest scholarship on a given topic, as well as original thinking on the part of the critic. The Encyclopedia is available in print and as an e-reference text from Oxford's Digital Reference Shelf.At the core of the encyclopedia lie 250 essays on poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists. The most prominent figures (such as Whitman, Melville, Faulkner, Frost, Morrison, and so forth) are treated at considerable length (10,000 words) by top-flight critics. Less well known figures arediscussed in essays ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Each essay examines the life of the author in the context of his or her times, looking in detail at key works and describing the arc of the writer's career. These essays include an assessment of the writer's current reputation with abibliography of major works by the writer as well as a list of major critical and biographical works about the writer under discussion.A second key element of the project is the critical assessments of major American masterworks, such as Moby-Dick, Song of Myself, Walden, The Great Gatsby, The Waste Land, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Death of a Salesmanr, or Beloved. Each of these essays offers a close reading of the given work,placing that work in its historical context and offering a range of possibilities with regard to critical approach. These fifty essays (ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words) are simply and clearly enough written that an intelligent high school student should easily understand them, but sophisticatedenough that a college student or general reader in a public library will find the essays both informative and stimulating.The final major element of this encyclopedia consists of fifty-odd essays on literary movements, periods, or themes, pulling together a broad range of information and making interesting connections. These essays treat many of the same authors already discussed, but in a different context; they alsogather into the fold authors who do not have an entire essay on their work (so that Zane Grey, for example, is discussed in an essay on Western literature but does not have an essay to himself). In this way, the project is truly "encyclopedic," in the conventional sense. These essays aim forcomprehensiveness without losing anything of the narrative force that makes them good reading in their own right.In a very real fashion, the literature of the American people reflects their deepest desires, aspirations, fears, and fantasies. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature gathers a wide range of information that illumines the field itself and clarifies many of its particulars.

Review: "Written to stress the crosscurrent of ideas, this cultural encyclopedia provides clearly written and authoritative articles. Thoughts, themes, people, and nations that define the Romantic Era, as well as some frequently overlooked topics, receive their first encyclopedic treatments in 850 signed articles, with bibliographies and coverage of historical antecedents and lingering influences of romanticism. Even casual browsers will discover much to enjoy here."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

"The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science provides an outstanding resource in 33 published volumes with 2 helpful indexes. This thorough reference set--written by 1300 eminent, international experts--offers librarians, information/computer scientists, bibliographers, documentalists, systems analysts, and students, convenient access to the techniques and tools of both library and information science. Impeccably researched, cross referenced, alphabetized by subject, and generously illustrated, the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science integrates the essential theoretical and practical information accumulating in this rapidly growing field."

Presents an alphabetical reference guide detailing the lives and works of authors associated with Gothic literature.

"The Carlyle Encyclopedia focuses primarily on Thomas Carlyle. It reflects the range of his interests and resists stereotyped impression of who he was and what he believed. It covers Carlyle's entire life, without privileging any particular work or period, and locates Carlyle in his time and place, in the context of a rich and challenging age. The Carlyle Encyclopedia also gives a balanced assessment of Jane Welsh Carlyle, which avoids either belittling her or overestimating her achievement. It avoids the reductive and contradictory stereotypes of her which were offered by early biographers of Thomas Carlyle and offers instead a study of her varied friendships and her trenchant observations on contemporary life." "The Carlyle Encyclopedia will interest a variety of readers who concern themselves with literature, social history, the history of ideas, Victorian culture, and Scottish studies."--BOOK JACKET.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most challenging authors of American literature. He is known internationally as the author of The Great Gatsby (1925), a twentieth-century literary classic studied by high school students and scholars alike. But Fitzgerald was an amazingly productive writer despite numerous personal and professional difficulties. From the beginning of his literary career with the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920 to his death in 1940, he wrote 5 novels, roughly 180 short stories, numerous essays and reviews, much poetry, several plays, and some film scripts. Even when he wrote hastily and perhaps bleary-eyed, his works almost always exhibit the flashes of his genius. He is celebrated as a symbol of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties, but beneath all the glitter for which his prose is famous, he warns of the dangers of personal recklessness and praises the redemptive power of love. Through hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries, this reference book provides complete coverage of Fitzgerald's life and writings. The volume begins with a chronology that traces his rise from obscurity to fame, his struggles with alcoholism, and his eventual financial downfall. The entries that follow give a full and detailed picture of Fitzgerald and his work. They present the essential action in Fitzgerald's novels, short stories, plays, and poems; identify all named fictional characters and indicate their significance; and give brief biographical information for Fitzgerald's family members, friends, and professional associates. Many of the entries include bibliographies which emphasize criticism published after 1990, and the volume closes with a general bibliography of the most important broad studies of Fitzgerald and his works. A thorough index and extensive cross references provide additional access to the wealth of information in this reference book and help make it a useful tool for a wide range of users.

This reference work covers both Herman Melville's life and writings. It includes a biography and detailed information on his works, on the important themes contained therein, and on the significant people and places in his life. The appendices include suggestions for further reading of both literary and cultural criticism, an essay on Melville's lasting cultural influence, and information on both the fictional ships in his works and the real-life ones on which he sailed.

Presents a reference guide to transcendentalism, with articles on significant works, writers, concepts and more.

The sea and Great Lakes have inspired American authors from colonial times to the present to produce enduring literary works. This reference is a comprehensive survey of American sea literature. The scope of the encyclopedia ranges from the earliest printed matter produced in the colonies to contemporary experiments in published prose, poetry, and drama. The book also acknowledges how literature gives rise to adaptations and resonances in music and film and includes coverage of nonliterary topics that have nonetheless shaped American literature of the sea and Great Lakes. The alphabetical arrangement of the reference facilitates access to facts about major literary works, characters, authors, themes, vessels, places, and ideas that are central to American sea literature. Each of the several hundred entries is written by an expert contributor and many provide bibliographical information. While the encyclopedia includes entries for white male canonical writers such as Herman Melville and Jack London, it also gives considerable attention to women at sea and to ethnically diverse authors, works, and themes. The volume concludes with a chronology and a list of works for further reading.