This best-selling, comprehensive guide to literature in English is an essential source to the vast heritage of literature in the English language throughout the world, it provides an up-to-date and authoritative survey of world-wide literary tradition. Unrivalled in its richness and diversity, it ranges from Britain and Ireland to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, the Caribbean and India.
Clear explanations of genres, movements, critical terms and literary concepts are given - from irony to structuralism, from romanticism to Science Fiction. There are descriptive entries for major works and literary journals, as well as detailed biographies of novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists, journalists and critics, from the giants of the past to the writers of today.