English: A Research Guide

The Oxford Companion to English Literature has long been established as the leading reference resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers of English literature. It provides unrivalled coverage of all aspects of English literature ― from writers, their works, and the historical and cultural context in which they wrote, to critics, literary theory, and allusions.

This award-winning Encyclopedia surveys the vibrant terrain of American literature in 350 essays from leading scholars, encompassing the range and depth of American literary history from the 1600s to the present day. The Encyclopedia includes essays on poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists, as well as major works and essays on literary movements, periods, and themes. No mere catalog of dates, events, and synopses, the Encyclopedia's articles offer historical perspective and social context along with a range of possibilities with regard to critical approach.

The Encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of literature from the Abbey Theatre to Israel Zangwill, covering the entire history of literature in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in the major literary languages (Anglo-Saxon, English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Latin). It includes substantial accounts of individual authors (e.g., Spenser, Pope, Austen) and detailed histories of particular themes, movements, genres, and institutions, whose impact upon the writing or the reading of literature was significant (e.g., The Stationers' Company, the sonnet, the ‘School of Night, ’ or the Sublime).