CHAPTER 12 - English Literature

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the guides to printed materials and literary information on English Literature. A valuable guide to older bibliographies, including both those published separately and those included in books and periodicals, is C. S. Northup, A Register of Bibliographies of the English Language and Literature (New Haven, Yale Univ. Pr., 1925; reprinted New York, Hafner, 1962). This was supplemented by N. Van Patten, Index to Bibliographies and Bibliographical Contributions Relating to the Work of American and British Authors, 1923–1932 (Stanford, Univ. Pr., 1934). An extensive guide to general bibliographies and to bibliographies devoted to periods, forms and genres, and subjects is T.H. Howard-Hill, Bibliography of British Literary Bibliographies (Oxford, Clarendon Pr., 1969). This forms the first volume of a projected Index of British Bibliography. The basic bibliographical tool for the study of English literature is the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, edited by F.W. Bateson (4 vols., CUP, 1940). The third volume covers the period 1800–1900.