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An illustrated overview of the life and works of a selected number of important writers in the English language from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

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CHOICE Review

The 56 writers covered by these 13 slim, 100-page volumes (plus index volume) are overwhelmingly British (84), male (84), and dead (98.2: sole exception, Graham Greene). Grouped in theme/genre volumes with titles like "American Classics," "Great Poets," and "Exotic Journeys" the 56 include figures such as Chaucer, Fielding, Jane Austen, Defoe, Darwin, Hardy, Maugham, Robert Graves, Steinbeck, and Hemingway. Katherine Mansfield represents the Empire/Commonwealth. The omission of Milton and Joyce seems a bit much, in spite of the assertion in Anthony Burgess's preface that "the point about all the books considered in this series is that they are enjoyable." (One wonders, also, what "enjoyable" means when applied to Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, for example.) For what it is--USA Today meets Masterplots--it is well produced. The format for each author almost invariably includes biography, extensive plot summary, and a made-for-your-term-paper analysis of one work, much briefer summaries of other major works, a more general analysis, a few pages on related historical background (e.g., Bloomsbury, the imperial army), and lots and lots of good and colorful pictures (homes and haunts, significant others, contemporary illustrations, etc.) A brief, unannotated bibliography of odd assortments of secondary sources concludes each volume. The fact that the text is anonymous will no doubt tempt some students to extend the practice of unattributed, quotationless citation or paraphrase, for which so much of the text seems, in fact, intended. A slick, lightweight work, of no interest to this reviewer's library, nor wanted at home for the children. -S. Lehmann, University of Pennsylvania