Announcing The New York Public Library Literature Companion

A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature of All Times and Places Published by The New York Public Library and The Free Press

"No other modern literary companion comes close to matching this book's remarkable breadth." -- Library Journal

New York, November 1, 2001 -- The repository of some of the most prestigious literary archives in America and of an unsurpassed world literature collection, The New York Public Library brings extraordinary resources to the compilation of this comprehensive new guide. Both authoritative and entertaining, The New York Public Library Literature Companion, edited by Anne Skillion (The Free Press; November 7, 2001), offers 2,500 entries on authors, critics, works, characters, terms, and literary facts and resources -- and a wealth of special features.

The editors and writers who developed the Companion came to it with an expansive idea of literature as a source of pleasure, inspiration, and amusement. They wanted  to create a volume that would both illuminate the facts and stimulate exploration. They wanted it to be a reference book attuned to the new millennium, one that would take  a fresh look at literature in the context of today's world of pop culture and multimedia, and which would deliberately steer clear of overly academic debates. Finally, they  wanted the design and organization to reflect the spirit of the book -- to be inviting, accessible, and readable, with browsable sections instead of a single alphabetic organization. The result is The New York Public Library Literature Companion, which ranges throughout the world and the history of the written word from the great classic authors to the critically esteemed and popular writers of today. It's a book that reflects the love of literature and the eclecticism of the Library itself.

The New York Public Library Literature Companion is also a treasure trove of lists, quotations, and  sidebars with humorous and informative facts. Here you will find all the winners of some 15 awards (including the Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker, Goncourt, Edgar, Nebula, and Bollingen, the most complete listing in any single-volume compendium for literature) and a rich array of bibliographies -- of recommended reading, best literary biographies, banned books, and books for literary travelers, as well as features on literary references in pop culture, literary allusions, real prototypes for literary characters, and much more. Frank McCourt's verdict: "Not only scholarly and wide-ranging, it's a good read and addictive."

With four major research centers and 85 branch libraries, The New York Public Library, founded in 1895, is internationally recognized as one of the greatest institutions of its kind. Among the books published from the Library in recent years are The Hand of the Poet (1997), The New York Public Library Desk Reference (1998), Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss (1999), A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980  (1998), and Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World (2000).

Anne Skillion is Senior Editor in The New York Public Library's Publications Office and holds graduate degrees in literature and librarianship. The founding editor of the Library's scholarly journal Biblion and the editor of Introducing the Great American Novel, she lives in New York City.

The New York Public Library Literature Companion
Edited by Anne Skillion
A Stonesong Press Book
Published by The Free Press
Publication Date:  November 7, 2001
Price:  $40.00
Pages:  772
ISBN:  0-684-86890-3

Available in The New York Public Library Shop

*Book-of-the-Month Club, Alternate Selection

Contact: Jennifer Bertrand, 212-221-7676, jbertrand@nypl.org
 

###
 

Notable Features of The New York Public Library Literature Companion

• Authors -- entries for over 800 major literary figures from all historical periods and cultural traditions around the world, including the great writers of Africa, the Arabic-speaking countries, Asia, Israel, Russia, and Latin America, as well as of Europe and the English-speaking world.
• Other Influential Figures -- devoted to critics, biographers, thinkers and "powers behind the scenes," such as editors, publishers, translators, and television commentators. Entries include Edmund Wilson, Noah Webster, Walter Kerr, Janet Flanner, Maxwell Perkins, Harold Ross, Oprah Winfrey and others not often found in literary reference books.
• Variations -- explores the movies, plays, and other adaptations that were inspired by famous works of literature.
• Websites for Literature -- provides a selective guide to high-quality websites that should be bookmarked by all lovers of literature, including the best navigators, "virtual reference desks," best sources for literary journalism and academic criticism, print magazine websites and e-zines, organizations and booksellers, and editions of works of literature.
• Characters -- the perfect place to look up Ichabod Crane, Ophelia, or Captain Ahab, among many others.
• Influential Literary Periodicals -- essential information on all the major groundbreaking journals  from The Athenaeum and The Atlantic Monthly to The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine.
• Dictionary of Literature -- up-to-the-minute coverage of literary terms, including widely used, but often misunderstood, academic terminology, which this book clarifies for the general reader. This is also the place to find a perfect example of an allegory or satire, or a description of the surrealist movement.
• Literary Reference Sources -- divided by period, country, genre, ethnicity, and gender, you can find additional resources on anything from ghost literature to the literature of Brazil. Other bibliographies list quotation books, style manuals and guides to plots, places, and characters; and biographical reference sources for literature.
• Chronology of World Literature -- highlights important events from the invention of the first system of writing in 3500 BC to the changes in publishing and bookselling wrought by the Internet.
• Landmarks in Literary Censorship -- highlights the key events in the history of attempts to censor and suppress literature, from Savanarola's "bonfire of the vanities" to clandestine publishing of banned books in Soviet Russia and the landmark court battles in the United States.
• Entertaining short pieces -- exploring such topics as writers' pen names, poets' day jobs, soldiers' reading during wartime, great writers' translations of other great writers, hilariously shortsighted editors' letters rejecting books that would go on to become either classics or blockbusters.
• Quotations -- scores of memorable quotations from well-known writers on the joys of reading,  on writing and the writing life, and on fellow writers.
   
   

###

jbertrand: pro