The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature is an essential companion to a literary tradition of extraordinary depth. Now published at a popular price, this massive one-volume encyclopedia extends from Aneirin and the poet of Widsith to C�dmon and the author of Beowulf; from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Geoffrey Chaucer; from Spenser to Shakespeare; from Donne to Milton to Dryden; from Dr. Johnson and Jane Austen to William Blake; from Thackeray, the Bront�s, and Dickens to Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Coe, and Zadie Smith. This magisterial volume is a guide to literature that is British in scope and origin, including surveys of the literatures written English from the colonial to the postcolonial experience in Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, India, Ireland, and New Zealand.

More than ten years in the making, this comprehensive single-volume literary survey is for the student, scholar, and general reader. The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature represents a collaborative effort, involving 300 contributors from across the US and Canada. Composed of more than 1,100 signed biographical-critical entries, this Encyclopedia serves as both guide and companion to the study and appreciation of American literature. A special feature is the topical article, of which there are 70.

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A comprehensive reference presents over five hundred full essays on authors and a variety of topics, including censorship, genre, patronage, and dictionaries.

An alphabetical reference with more than 1,500 entries that trace symbols to their cultural, religious, or mythological origins, and explain the hidden or encoded meaning that lies concealed beneath objects' and concepts' ordinary, outward appearance.

Volume 4: Modernism - Percy Bysshe Shelley.