The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature [Paperback]

For nearly half a century, James D. Hart'sOxford Companion to American Literaturehas offered a matchless guided tour through American literary culture, both past and present. Hart now presents the first abridgement of theCompanionin a paperback edition, making the entries of the greatest general interest from the original volume available to a much wider audience.
Compact and affordable,The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literaturecontains over 2,000 entries, including brief biographies of important authors, plot summaries of individual works, descriptions of important literary movements, and a wealth of information on other aspects of American literary life and history from the Colonial period to the modern era. It devotes approximately 325 of the biographical entries to contemporary writers, introducing such newcomers to theCompanionas William Kennedy, Grace Paley, and Raymond Carver. The more specialized and esoteric entries from the original have been omitted.
Like its predecessor,The Concise Oxford Companioncontains a thorough system of cross references to guide the reader to related information on a given topic, as well as a chronological Index outlining significant events in the literary and social history of the United States.

A skilled abridgement...[of] a standard work in its field....A valuable addition to the reference shelf for anyone interested in American literature. --John Barkham Reviews

Invaluable to those who need such a reference book, and [Hart's] enterprise, as before, has to be applauded. --Sunday Times(London)

Wonderfully useful for quick references and just as enjoyable for browsing. --The Christian Science Monitor

Praise for the fifth edition ofThe Oxford Companion to American Literature:

The histories and latest theories of American writing will come and go, but the authors and their works will l#8