Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy
These additions to the "Reader's Companion" series (following those on Dickens and Trollope) address the need for one-volume encyclopedic surveys of these two master novelists. Although each book uses a basic A-Z format, there are differences as well. The Joseph Conrad reference is concerned with seven broad areas: biography, places associated with the life and writings, literary life, reputation, the works, influences and sources, and historical and cultural contexts. The heading "Conrad, Joseph" in the body of the book refers the reader to a chronology of Conrad's life. Each novel is treated in one long, undivided essay, and individual characters are discussed in detail, as are various critical approaches to the writer. A number of entries end with brief bibliographical paragraphs. Knowles (English, Univ. of Hull, England) and Moore (English, Univ. of Amsterdam) worked with four other contributors. The Thomas Hardy companion is also concerned with seven broad areas: the works, people, places, contexts, publishing, criticism and scholarship, and miscellaneous topics. Both a biography and a chronology are included. Long discussions of the novels are divided into sections (e.g., composition, illustrations, plot, reception, and critical approaches), while the essays on the poetry collections are not. The characters are not discussed individually, and there is one "critical approaches" entry rather than single references to each theory. Many entries end with bibliographies of one or more critical studies, and a good-sized bibliography is included, as are a number of useful appendixes (index of the poems, characters in the fiction, place-names, glossary of dialect words, and Hardy's works in the cinema, radio, and television). Page (English, Univ. of Nottingham. emeritus) worked with 42 contributors. Both works are lively and thorough, and both are highly recommended for upper division academic library collections as well as larger public libraries. (Illustrations not seen.)--Morris Hounion, New York City Technical Coll. Lib., BrooklynCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.