Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of American Writers

商家名称	信用等级	购买信息	订购本书
		Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of American Writers
		Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of American Writers

基本信息·出版社：Merriam-Webster
·页码：536 页
·出版日期：2001年03月
·ISBN：0877790221
·条形码：9780877790228
·装帧：精装
·正文语种：英语

内容简介 A guide to America's literary tradition. Over 1,600 articles on writers, literary works, movements, and influential periodicals. More than 170 black-and-white photographs. The companion volume to C-Span's series American Writers: A Journey Through History.
作者简介 Since 1937. Merriam-Webster is America's foremost publisher of language-related reference works. The company publishes a diverse array of print and electronic products, including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition – America's best-selling desk dictionary – and Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster can be considered the direct lexicographical heir of Noah Webster. In 1843, the company bought the rights to the 1841 edition of Webster's magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and Enlarged. At the same time, they secured the rights to create revised editions of the work. Since that time, Merriam-Webster editors have carried forward Noah Webster's work, creating some of the most widely used and respected dictionaries and reference books in the world.
编辑推荐 Amazon.com
Published in conjunction with C-SPAN's American Writers series, this Dictionary of American Writers features capsule biographies of more than 1,100 American writers. Among them are "numerous American Indians, former slaves, and immigrants from every corner of the earth." There are writers of fiction, poetry, drama, history, essays, diaries, philosophy, and even screenplays. While some of these write-ups (on Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, and William Dean Howells, for example) are longer, most are around 150 words (and adapted from Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). You can't say a lot in 150 words. There are dates and places to fit in, as well as titles of major works, and, in some cases, pronunciations (though why there are five listed for John Brougham's surname eludes us). The biographical sketches are, in other words, sketchy. Still, the book starts in with Edward Abbey and doggedly charts a path all the way to Louis Zukofsky.

If you're looking for a little information about an awful lot of American writers, this will suit your needs just fine. And there are interesting tidbits throughout: lawyer Louis Auchincloss, we learn, managed to pen 50 books in part because he would take a writing notebook to court; Frances Hodgson Burnett paid for writing paper by "gathering and selling wild grapes"; and Mary Higgins Clark worked as a flight attendant. Also included are more than 500 entries on literary works, and over 75 on groups, movements, and periodicals that have helped shape "the character of American literature." --Jane Steinberg


专业书评 From Library Journal
the series' web site (www.americanwriters.org). The bulk of the work consists of 1000 biographical articles on influential American authors. Following is a section of briefer descriptive entries on over 500 literary works, including important novels, poems, plays, essays, and histories. The dictionary ends with a section that lists and describes 75 of the groups, movements, and periodicals that have shaped American literature. Each biographical entry includes full name, pronunciation (if necessary), birth and death dates and places, and a one-line pr?cis of the importance of the subject, in addition to the brief biographical article. Black-and-white thumbnail photos of the authors appear on alternating pages. As an accompaniment to the television series, this is a wonderful book, to be used for reference and read for enrichment. But as a comprehensive biographical dictionary for a library reference collection, it doesn't quite fit the bill. In size, shape, and format, it is like the line of dependable biographical, geographical, and other dictionaries produced by Merriam-Webster, but unlike those works, it is too selective. Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature (LJ 1/92) is still a better choice at the reference desk. Nevertheless, this book will be handy for the millions of library patrons who will be watching C-SPAN's year-long series. APaul D'Alessandro, Portland P.L., ME
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Designed for the average reader as a companion volume to C-SPAN's 38-part series American Writers: A Journey through History, this alphabetically arranged dictionary treats the 400-year literary history of the U.S., from the time of the earliest European colonists to the eve of the twenty-first century. Entries are arranged into three sections: "Authors," " Literary Works," and "Groups, Movements, and Periodicals."

The first section, by far the largest, with more than 1,000 entries, covers a wide range of authors, including novelists, poets, dramatists, historians, diarists, essayists, journalists, philosophers, and even screenwriters. Entries, generally a paragraph or two in length, contain biographical information and a listing of important works, some cross-referenced to entries in the "Literary Works" section. Twentieth-century authors predominate, but writers from other time periods are well represented. America's pluralism is reflected, although several omissions were noted, among them Denise Chavez, Michael Dorris, and David Henry Hwang.

Although fewer in number, the 500 entries of the "Literary Works" section are no less significant. They provide a brief publishing history, summary, and discussion of important poems, plays, novels, essays, autobiographies, short stories, and historical works. Coverage is thorough, except for the last category, which could have been enriched by the inclusion of the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address. Excluded presumably because they are not considered literary works per se, their absence is surprising considering their routine appearance in many literary anthologies.

In "Groups, Movements, and Periodicals," readers can explore the evolving nature of the American tradition in 75 entries as varied as the Hartford wits, Kenyon Review, and Transcendentalism.

Overall, this resource has much to recommend it--clarity, ease of use, fine organization, and sound information, not to mention 150 black-and-white photographs. There are numerous other reference books covering the same topics, but generally in one alphabetical sequence; this volume's three-part arrangement offers a different approach. Although neither exhaustive nor definitive, it would make a nice addition to high-school, public, and academic libraries needing an affordable, accessible one-volume guide. RBB
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