Supernatural Literature of the World [Three Volumes] An Encyclopedia

Subjects:

• Literature » Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Literature » English Literature
• Literature » American Literature

Awards:

• International Horror Guild Award for Works in 2005
• Booklist Editors' Choice 2006
• Locus 2005 Recommended Reading List

Reviews:

• [T]o be recommended as a scholarly and well-produced source of all kinds of information about its subject.
  —Reference Reviews September 2006
• [I]ts scope and quality make it the single most important reference work on its subject to date. Enthusiastically recommended for all but the smallest public and academic libraries.
  —Reference & User Services Quarterly Summer 2006
• This set would be useful in settings where the supernatural is often researched. The entries on motifs contain descriptions of titles that employ that motif. This could assist students who are looking for works with a particular theme.
  —Library Media Connection August/September 2006
• From alien abductions to vampires and zombies, the use of particular motifs is traced. The influence of religion on the supernatural elements of fiction is also explored. All told, some 973 topics are covered. While many illustrations depict film adaptations, the focus here is on writing. Discussion of horror film and television is excluded. Although the editors wrote the majority of the entries, the 66 well-published contributors include Mike Ashley, Brian Stableford, Stephen Jones and Everett F. Bleiler. Many entries include extensive bibliographies. An index of fictional characters allows readers to identify favorite figures from Diedrich Knickerbocker to John the Balladeer. Additional indexes include motifs, authors, book titles and general subjects. This detailed guide should prove popular in both public and academic libraries.
  —Lawrence Looks at Books November 2005
• This reference covers authors and works from the ancient world to the present. The encyclopedia features nearly 1,000 alphabetically arranged entries including such major canonical writers as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde, along with popular contemporary authors like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and R.L. Stine.
  —Library Media Connection November/December 2005
• [R]unning the gamut from film to fiction to theme entries to authors, and many entries are appealingly outfitted with illustrations or excerpts....[t]his reference work may be indispensable.
  —Fantasy & Science Fiction 2006
• Starred Review Extensive and ambitious, this encyclopedia has nearly 1,000 entries packed into it and ranges through the work of about 600 writers, editors, publishers, critics, and magazines. Defining supernatural literature as literature that is avowedly postulated to have expanded, refuted, or contravened the laws of nature as currently understood, the editors have drawn from the ranks of writers of science fiction, fantasy, psychological suspense, and other genres. In addition to covering supernatural elements in the works of canonical writers like Dickens and Shakespeare, they include modern authors like Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan. There are writers from about 20 countries and from various time periods up to the present....The work is enthusiastically recommended for academic and large public libraries; since supernatural literature is popular with teens, high-school libraries might consider it, too.
  —Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin February 15, 2006
• This expansive multivolume encyclopedia brims with over 1,000 alphabetically arranged entries. Canonical writers like Poe and contemporary writers like King are equally represented. Unlike E. F. Bleiler's biographically based Supernatural Fiction Writers (CH, Jul'03, 40-6151), this set also contains entries on seminal works, fictional elements, and subgenres. All entries are descriptive and analytic, and many conclude with a bibliography of critical works. Researchers will find the indexes to fictional characters and motifs particularly valuable....[a] welcome addition to libraries collecting or supporting research in this genre. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers/faculty.
  —Choice 5/1/2006

Table of Contents:

• Foreword by Ramsey Campbell
  Preface
  Alphabetical List of Entries
  The Encyclopedia
  Notes on Contributors
  Thematic Index of Entries
  Index of Fictional Characters
  Index of Motifs
  General Index

PDF Catalogs:
Greenwood Literature Spring 2008.pdf	Sale Catalog 2008.pdf
Awards Catalog.pdf