About the Book
Intended to serve the academic needs of the students of English literature, the Companion is an ultimate literary reference source, providing an up-to-date, comprehensive and authoritative biographies of novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists, journalists and critics ranging from literary giants of the past to contemporary writers like Peter Burnes (1931-2004), Anthony Powell (1905-2000), Patrick O’Brian (1914-2000), Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), Grace Nicholas (1950- ) and Douglas Adams (1952-2001). Over the last few decades English literary canon has become relatively more extensive and diverse. In recognition of the significance of the New Literatures in English, special emphasis has been given on the writers of these literatures. In addition, the Indian writers writing in English have been given a prominent place in the book, thereby making it particularly useful for the students of Indian English Literature. The Companion is unique of its kind as it gives a broad outline of the story and not merely a brief account of the plot structure of a literary work so as to enable the students to have a fairly good idea of the story. Likewise, before getting down to the writings of an author, the Companion provides an invaluable and authoritative biographical note believing that an author’s biography facilitates proper understanding of his/her contributions.
On account of its clear and reliable plot summaries and descriptive entries of major works and literary journals and authentic biographical details, the Companion is a work of permanent value. It is undoubtedly an indispensable and path-breaking handy reference guide for all those interested in literatures in English produced in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Africa, the Caribbean, India and other countries.
Table of Contents:
Abbas, Khwaja Ahmad; Abercrombie, Lascelles; Abrahams, Peter; Achebe, Chinua; Adair, Gilbert; Adams, Douglas; Adcock, Fleur; Addison, Joseph; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The; Agard, John; Aidoo, Ama Ata; Akenside, Mark; Aldiss, Brian; Alkali, Zaynab; Alvi, Moniza; Ambassadors, The; Amis, Kingsley; Amis, Martin; Anand, Mulk Raj; Anderson, Balfour; Anderson, Jessica; Andric, Ivo; Animal Farm; Anthony, Michael; Anzaldúa, Gloria; Aragon, Louis; Armitage, Simon; Arnold, Matthew; Ascham, Roger; As You Like It; Atwood, Margaret; Aubyn, Edward St.; Aurobindo, Sri; Austen, Jane; Austin, Alfred; Ayckbourn, Alan; Bacon, Francis; Bailey, Hilary; Bailey, Paul; Bainbridge, Beryl; Baldwin, James; Ballard, J.G.; Banks, Lynne Reid; Banville, John; Barker, A.L.; Barker, George Granville; Barker, Pat; Barnes, Julian; Barnes, Peter; Barrie, Sir James Matthew; Barstow, Stan; Bates, H.E.; Baughan, Blanche; Bawden, Nina; Baxter, James Keir; Beaumont, Francis; Beauvoir, Simon De; Beaver, Bruce; Bebey, Francis; Beckett, Samuel; Beckford, William; Beerbohm, Max; Belben, Rosalind; Belloc, Hilaire; Bellow, Saul; Bennett, Arnold; Berger, John; Berkoff, Steven; Berniéres, Louis de; Berry, James; Bethell, Ursula; Beti, Mongo; Bhatnagar, Om Prakash; Bhattacharya, Bhabhani; Billington, Rachel; Binchy, Maeve; Birthday Party, The; Blackwood, Caroline; Blake, William; Bluestocking; Boehmer, Elleke; Bogarde, Sir Dirk; Boldrewood, Rolf [Thomas Alexander Browne]; Bolt, Robert; Bond, Edward; Bond, Ruskin; Borges, Jorge Luis; Bosman, Herman Charles; Bosworth, Patricia; Bowering, George; Boyd, Martin (A’ Beckett); Boyd, William; Bracewell, Michael; Bradbury, Malcolm; Bragg, Melvyn; Braine, John; Bridges, Robert; Bridie, James; Brink, André; Brodber, Erna; Brodsky, Joseph; Brontë, Emily; Brooke-Rose, Christine; Brookner, Anita; Brooks, Gwendolyn; Brophy, Brigid; Brown, George Mackay; Browne, Sir Thomas; Browning, Robert; Bruce, Mary Grant; Brutus, Dennis; Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George, First Baron Lytton; Burgess, Anthony; Burney, Fanny; Burns, Robert; Burnside, John; Burton, Robert; Butler, Samuel; Byatt, A.S.; Byron, George Gordon; Campbell, Alistair; Campbell, Wilfred; Camus, Albert; Carew, Jan Rynveld; Carew, Thomas; Carey, Peter; Carlyle, Thomas; Carter, Angela; Cary, Joyce; Cather, Willa; Caxton, William; Chapman, George; Chatterjee, Upamanyu; Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra; Chattopadhaya, Harindranath; Chaucer, Geoffrey; Chaudhuri, Amit; Chaudhuri, Nirad C.; Cheke, Sir John; Chesterton, G.K.; Chitre, Dilip; Chraibi, Driss; Churchill, Charles; Clarendon, Edward Hyde, earl of; Clark-Bekederemo, John Pepper; Clarke, Arthur C.; Clarke, Austin Chesterfield; Clarke, Lindsay; Clewlow, Carol; Clough, Arthur Hugh; Cocteau, Jean (1889–1963); Coetzee, John Michael; Cohen, Leonard; Coleridge, S.T.; Collins, Wilkie; Collins, William; Compton–Burnett, Ivy; Congreve, William; Conrad, Joseph; Cooper, William; Cory, Charlotte; Coryate, Thomas; Coward, Sir Noël; Cowley, Abraham; Cowper, William; Crabbe, George; Crace, Jim; Crashaw, Richard; Crawford, Robert; Dabydeen, David; Dalal, Nergis; Daruwalla, Keki N.; Das, Kamala; Davidson, John; Davies, Andrew; Davies, William Henry; Day-Lewis, Cecil; De Boissiere, Ralph; Defoe, Daniel; Dekker, Thomas; De la Mare, Walter; Deloney, Thomas; Denham, Sir John; De Quincey, Thomas; Derozio, Henry Louis Vivian; Desai, Anita; Desani, G.V.; Deshpande, Gauri; Deshpande, Shashi; Dibdin, Michael; Dickens, Charles; Diski, Jonny; Disraeli, Benjamin; Doctor Faustus; Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll); Donne, John; Doolittle, Hilda; Dos Passos, John; Doyle, Roddy; Drabble, Margaret; Drinkwater, John; Drummond, William; Dryden, John; Duchess of Malfi, The; Duffy, Carol Ann; Duffy, Maureen; Dunbar, William; Dunmore, Helen; Durrell, Lawrence; Dutt, Michael Madhusudan; Dutt, Toru; Dyer, Geoff; Earle, John; Eco, Umberto; Edgar, David; Edgell, Zee; Ekwensi, Cyprian O.D.; Eliot, George; Eliot, T.S.; Elliott, Janice; Ellis, Alice Thomas; Elyot, Sir Thomas; Emecheta, Buchi; Etherege, George; Ezekiel, Nissim; Fairbairns, Zoe; Far from the Madding Crowd; Farah, Nuruddin; Farewell to Arms, A; Farquhar, George; Farrell, James Gordon; Fast, Howard M.; Faulkner, William; Faulks, Sebastian; Feinstein, Elaine; Fell, Alison; Felltham, Owen; Fielding, Henry; Figes, Eva; Fire on the Mountain; Fischer, Tibor; Fitzgerald, Edward; Fitzgerald, Francis Scott; Fitzgerald, Penelope; Flecker, James Elroy; Fletcher, Giles; Fletcher, John; Fletcher, Phineas; Follett, Ken; Ford, Ford Madox; Forster, E.M.; Forster, Margaret; Fortescue, Sir John; Fowles, John Robert; Frame, Ronald; Francis, Richard Stanley ; Frayn, Michael; French, David ; French, Sean; Freud, Esther; Fry, Stephen ; Fuller, John; Fuller, Thomas; Gallant, Mavis; Galloway, Janice ; Galsworthy, John; Gardam, Jane ; Garner, Helen ; Garner, Hugh ; Garth, Sir Samuel; Gascoigne, George; Gawain, Douglas; Gay, John; Gébler, Carlo; Gee, Maggie; Ghose, Manmohan; Ghose, Sudhindra Nath; Ghose, Zulfikar; Ghosh, Amitav; Gibson, W.W.; Gibson, William; Gide, André ; Gilroy, Beryl; Glaister, Lesley; Glass Menagerie, The ; Glover, Denis ; Godden, Margaret Rumer; Godwin, William; Gokhale, Namita; Golding, William; Goldsmith, Oliver; Gordimer, Nadine; Granville-Barker, Harley ; Grass, Günter ; Gray, Alasdair; Gray, Thomas; Great Expectations; Great Gatsby, The; Great Indian Novel, The; Green, Henry; Greene, Graham; Greene, Robert; Greenlaw, Lavinia; Gupta, Sunetra; Gurnah, Abdulrazak ; Haley, Alex ; Halifax, George Savile; Hall, Joseph ; Hamlet.; Hampton, Christopher ; Hardy, Thomas; Hare, David; Hariharan, Githa; Harpur, Charles; Harris, (Theodore) Wilson; Harrison, Tony; Hartley, L.P.; Harwood, Gwen Doline Nessie 233; Harwood, Ronald; Hau’ofa, Epeli; Hawes, Stephen; Hawthorne, Nathaniel; Hazlitt, William; Hazzard, Shirley ; Head, Bessie; Heaney, Seamus; Heart of Darkness; Heat and Dust; Heath, Roy; Hemingway, Earnest Miller ; Henley, W.E.; Henry, O.; Henryson, Robert; Herbert, George; Herbert, W.N.; Herrick, Robert; Hewett, Dorothy Coade; Hibberd, Jack ; Hill, Susan; Hoban, Russell; Hobbes, Thomas ; Hoccleve, (or Occleve), Thomas 247; Hodgins, Jack ; Hodgson, Ralph; Hofmann, Michael; Hogan, Desmond; Hollinghurst, Alan.; Home, Henry, Lord Kames; Hood, Hugh; Hood, Stuart; Hooker, Richard; Hope, Alec Derwent; Hope, Christopher; Hopkins, Gerard Manley ; Hospital, Janette Turner; Houseman, A.E.; Howard, Elizabeth Jane; Howell, James; Hughes, Glyn ; Hughes, Ted; Hulme, Keri ; Huth, Angela; Huxley, Aldous Leonard; Ignatieff, Michael; Ihimaera, Witi; Ishiguro, Kazuo; Iyayi, Festus ; Jacobson, Dan; Jacobson, Howard; James I.; James, Henry; Jamie, Kathleen; Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer; John, Errol; Johnson, Colin; Johnson, James Weldon; Johnson, Samuel; Jolley, Elizabeth; Jones, Henry Arthur; Jones, Russell Celyn ; Jonson, Ben; Joshi, Arun; Josipovici, Gabriel; Joyce, James; Judd, Allan; Julius Caesar; Kafka, Franz; Kakar, Sudhir ; Kanga, Firdaus; Kanthapura; Kapur, Manju ; Karnad, Girish; Katiyo, Wilson; Keane, Molly; Keates, Jonathan; Keats, John; Kelman, James; Keneally, Thomas; Kennedy, Alison Louise; Kerr, Philip; Kincaid, Jamaica ; King, Francis; King Lear; Kingsley, Charles; Kipling, Rudyard ; Klein, Abraham Moses; Kneale, Matthew ; Koestler, Arthur; Kolatkar, Arun; Kroetsch, Robert; Kumar, Shiv K.; Kundera, Milan; Kunene, Mazisi; Kuppner, Frank; Kureishi, Hanif; Kyd, Thomas; La Guma, Alex; Lacambra Ayala, Tita; Ladoo, Harold Sonny ; Lamb, Charles; Lambert, Angela; Lamming, George; Langley, Lee; Larkin, Philip Arthur; Laurence, Margaret; Lawrence, D.H.; Leacock, Stephen ; Le Carré, John; Lee, Nathaniel; Lessing, Doris ; Levine, Norman; Levy, Deborah; Lewis, Matthew Gregory ; Lewis, Sinclair; Lewis, Wyndham; Lindsay, Jack; Lindsay, Norman Alfred William; Lindsay, Sir David; Litvinoff, Emanuel; Lively, Adam; Lively, Penelope; Locke, John ; Lodge, David; Lodge, Thomas; Longley, Michael; Look Back in Anger; Lord of the Flies ; Lovelace, Earl; Lovelace, Richard; Lucas, Edward Verrall; Lyall, Gavin; Lydgate, John ; Lyly, John; Lynd, Robert; Macaulay, Thomas Babington; Macbeth; MacBeth, George; Mackay, Shena; Mackenzie, Henry; MacLaverty, Bernard; MacNeice, Louis ; Madden, Deirdre ; Madhavaiah, Anantanarayan; Maguire, Sarah; Mahfouz, Naguib; Mahon, Derek; Mailer, Norman; Mais, Roger ; Maitland, Sara; Malcolm, Janet; Malgonkar, Manohar; Malory, Sir Thomas; Mann, Thomas; Mansfield, Katherine; Mantel, Hilary; Marechera, Dambudzo; Markandaya, Kamala ; Marlatt, Daphne; Marlowe, Christopher ; Márquez, Gabriel Gracía; Mars-Jones, Adam; Marston, John ; Marvell, Andrew ; Masefield, John Edward; Massie, Allan ; Maugham, William Somerset; Mauriac, Francois; Maxwell, Glyn; Mayor of Casterbridge, The ; McCabe, Patrick; McCrum-Patron, Robert; McEwan, Ian; McGahern, John; McGrath, John; McGrath, Patrick; Mcilvanney, William; McWilliam, Candia ; Mehta, Gita ; Mehta, Ved; Melville, Herman; Merchant of Venice, The ; Meredith, George; Middleton, Stanley; Middleton, Thomas; Midnight’s Children ; Midsummer Night’s Dream, A; Mill on the Floss, The; Miller, Henry ; Milton, John; Mistry, Rohinton ; Mitchison, Naomi; Mittelholzer, Edgar; Mo, Timothy; Moggach, Deborah; Monro, Harold Edward; Moorcock, Michael; Moore, Brian; Moore, George; Moraes, Dominic Francis; More, Sir Thomas; Morris, William; Morrison, Toni; Mortimer, John Clifford; Mortimer, Penelope; Mosley, Nicholas; Motion, Andrew; Mudrooroo [Johnson, Colin] ; Mukherjee, Bharati; Muldoon, Paul; Mungoshi, Charles; Munro, Alice; Murdoch, Iris; Murray, Leslie Allan; Mustapha, Matura; Mwangi, Meja David ; Nagarkar, Kiran; Nahal, Chaman; Naidu, Sarojini; Naipaul, Shiva; Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad; Narayan, R.K.; Nashe, Thomas; Neil, Jordan ; Newby, Percy Howard; Newgate Novel; Newman, John Henry ; Nichols, Grace; Nkosi, Lewis; Norfolk, Lawrence; Noyes, Alfred ; Nye, Robert ; Oakley, Ann; O’Brien, Edna ; O’Brian, Patrick; O’Casey, Sean; O’Connor, Flannery ; O’Faolain, Julia; O’Hara, John ; Okai, Atukwei (John); Okigbo, Christopher; Okri, Ben; Old Man and the Sea, The ; Ondaatje, Michael; O’Neill, Eugene; Oodferoowalker, Kath ; Orwell, George; Osborne, John James; Othello; Otway, Thomas; Overbury, Sir Thomas; Page, Kathy ; Parks, Tim; Parthasarathy, Rajagopal; Passage to India, A ; Pasternak, Boris; Paston Letters, The; Patel, Gieve ; Pater, Walter Horatio ; Paterson, Don ; Paterson, James Hamilton; Paton, Alan; Patterson, Glenn; Pears, Tim; Pecock, Reginald ; Peele, George; Phillips, Caryl; Pinero, Arthur Wing; Pinter, Harold; Plater, Alan ; Poe, Edgar Allan ; Pollock, Sharon; Pope, Alexander; Porter, Hal; Portrait of a Lady, The; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A; Potter, Dennis ; Powell, Anthony; Pride and Prejudice ; Priest, Christopher McKenzie; Prior, Matthew; Proust, Marcel; Pullinger, Kate; Puzo, Mario ; Pym, Barbara ; Pynchon, Thomas; Raine, Craig; Ramanujan, A.K.; Rand, Ayn; Rao, Raja; Raphael, Frederic; Ratan, Balachandra; Rattigan, Sir Terence; Raven, Simon Noël; Read, Piers Paul; Reade, Charles; Reckord, Barry; Rendell, Ruth; Rhys, Jean; Richardson, Dorothy; Richardson, Samuel; Riley, Joan; Robbe–Grillet, Alain; Roberts, Michèle ; Robertson, Thomas William; Rogers, Jane; Rolland, Romain ; Romeo and Juliet; Roy, Arundhati; Rudkin, David; Rushdie, Salman; Ruskin, John; Saadawi, Nawal El; Sackville, Thomas; Sahgal, Nayantara; Saint Joan; Salkey, Andrew; Saramago, Jose; Sartre, Jean–Paul ; Scarlet Letter, The; Scott, Paul; Scott, Sir Walter ; Selden, John ; Self, Will; Selvon, Samuel; Sembene, Ousmane; Senior, Olive; Seth, Vikram; Shadow Lines, The; Shakespeare, Nicholas; Shakespeare, William ; Shapcott, Thomas William; Sharpe, Tom; Shaw, George Bernard; Shelley, Percy Bysshe; Shenstone, William; Sher, Antony; Sheridan, Richard Brinsley; Sholokov, Mikhail; Sidhwa, Bapsi ; Sidney, Sir Philip; Sillitoe, Alan; Sinclair, Andrew; Singh, Khushwant; Skelton, John; Smart, Christopher; Smart, Elizabeth; Smith, Arthur James Marshall; Smith, Pauline Janet; Smithyman, Kendrick; Snow, C.P.; Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Isayevich; Sons and Lovers; Souster, Raymond; Southall, Ivan Francis ; Soyinka, Wole; Spark, Muriel ; Spence, Alan; Spender, Sir Stephen Harold; Spenser, Edmund ; Srinivas, Krishna ; Stafford, Reid Victor; Stainer, Pauline; Steele, Sir Richard; Steinbeck, John; Sterne, Laurence; Stevenson, Robert Louis; Stone, Louis ; Stoppard, Tom; Storey, David ; Stow, Randolph; Suckling, Sir John; Sullivan, Tony; Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of; Swift, Graham; Swift, Jonathan; Swinburne, Algernon Charles; Symons, Julian Gustava; Synge, John Millington; Tagore, Rabindranath ; Taylor, Jeremy; Tempest, The; Temple, Sir William; Tendulkar, Vijay ; Tennant, Emma (1938- ) ; Tennyson, Alfred Lord; Teran, Lisa St Aubin de; Tess of the D’Urbervilles; Thackeray, William Makepeace; Tharoor, Shashi; Thea, Astley; Things Fall Apart; Thiong’O, Ngugi Wa ; Thomas, Biyi Bandele ; Thomas, Donald Michael; Thomas, Dylan; Thomas, Edward ; Thompson, Francis; Thomson, James; Thomson, James; Thorpe, Adam; Thubron, Colin; Thwaite, Anthony; Tinniswood, Peter; To the Lighthouse; Tom Jones; Tourneur, Cyril; Townsend, Sue; Tranter, John Ernest; Trapido, Barbara; Tremain, Rose; Trevor, William; Trollope, Anthony; Trollope, Joanna ; Tutuola, Amos; Tuwharem, Hone; Twain, Mark; Twelfth Night ; Tyndale, William; Unsworthy, Barry; Updike, John Hoyer ; Vanbrugh, Sir John; Vansittart, Peter; Vassanji, Moyez G. ; Vaughan, Henry; Vieira, Jose Luandino ; Volpone; Wain, John Barrington; Waiting for Godot; Walcott, Derek; Walker, Alice ; Walker, George Frederick; Waller, Edmund; Walpole, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford; Walpole, Sir Hugh; Warner, Marina; Waterhouse, Keith; Watson, William ; Waugh, Evelyn; Way of the World, The; Webster, John ; Weldon, Fay; Wells, Herbert George; Wertenbaker, Timberlake; Wesker, Arnold; Wesley, Mary ; West, Rebecca; White, Patrick; Wicks, Susan; Wilde, Oscar; Williams, Raymond ; Williams, Tennessee; Wilson, A.N.; Wilson, Angus; Wilson, Colin ; Wilson, Robert McLiam; Winterson, Jeanette; Woolf, Virginia; Wordsworth, William ; Wright, Richard; Wuthering Heights; Wyatt, Sir Thomas; Yeats, William Butler ; Young, Edward; Zameenzad, Adam
