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Critical Survey of Long Fiction

 

This massive 10-volume set is an update of the original, published in 1983/84 and revised in 1991 and again in 2000. Well over 100 authors dropped in the revised editions are reinstated here, and close to another 100 brand-new names have been added, fully half of them women. In total, that leaves nearly 700 international authors of long fiction from the tenth century to the present, alphabetically arranged. The format for each author entry includes birth and death dates; principal long fiction and other literary forms; literary achievements; biographical information; analysis of the author's work as a whole; plot and critical summary of one or more major works; and other major works. Each entry is followed by an approximately page-long bibliography of biographical and critical resources—useful, according to the opening “Publisher's Note,” to first-time readers of these authors' works. The last third or so of volume 9 and all of volume 10 contain more than 60 essays surveying everything from “Long Fiction in the Ancient Greco-Roman World” to “Young Adult Long Fiction.” Most essays focus on a specific country's, continent's, or culture's long fiction—African, German, Irish, Italian, Jewish American, etc.—or long fiction in a specific genre—detective, fantasy, gothic, historical, young adult, etc. Other special features in the last volume include a “Guide to Online Resources,” “Glossary of Literary Terms,” “Major Awards,” “Time Line,” and “Chronological List of Authors.” Each volume contains a comprehensive table of contents, while the last volume has a subject index, a “Geographical Index of Authors and Essays,” and a “Categorized Index of Authors” for the whole set. Overall, the Critical Survey of Long Fiction is very easy to use, and the entries are well written, informative, and clearly organized. This is an ideal resource for introducing undergraduates to the critical study of the authors herein. --Michael Tosko



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