Classic Love and Romance Literature: An Encyclopedia of Works, Characters, Authors, and Themes

by Virginia Roberts-Brackett

Overview

From Romeo and Juliet to Rebecca, entries treat scores of the most memorable novels and plays, providing information on authors, works, characters, and themes. Coverage is fair and square: men and women get equal time; elite and popular fiction are treated with respect; and minority voices are clearly heard.

Classic Love and Romance Literature includes more than 340 A–Z entries that are are thoroughly illustrated, cross-referenced, and indexed. This work accomplishes what the best reference books always do: it sends you back to the originals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874369557
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/25/1999
Series:	ABC-CLIO Literary Companion
Pages:	406
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

Viginia Brackett is assistant professor at Triton College, River Grove, IL.

Editorial Reviews

This encyclopedia, evidently the first on the subject, focuses on novel-length works in that "catch-all" and difficult-to-define genre, the romance. More specifically, it highlights literary novels in the romance tradition that are "read in high school and college classrooms, as well as by general readers." Brackett (East Central Univ., Ada, OK), whose 1998 dissertation shows a strong interest in popular reading, makes no claim to comprehensiveness. She has instead selected works representative of the romance traditions that sprang from the classical world. Typical entries include "Doctor Zhivago," "Eliza Doolittle," "Gustave Flaubert," and "Chivalry." Brackett's writing is clear and nonpedantic, and she has usually included brief bibliographies for further reading, but her plot summaries and character sketches too often provide no specific linkages to romance traditions. One can find out as much about the romance tradition in Jane Austen's Emma, for example, by consulting Masterplots (Salem, 1996. rev. ed.) or some other book of plot digests. Only for very large collections.--Peter A. Dollard, Alma Coll. Lib., Mt. Pleasant, MI Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In this case, "classic romance" refers to works such as and rather than dog-eared copies of favorite Harlequin romances. The encyclopedia contains about 300 alphabetically-arranged entries on authors, works, characters, themes, terms and concepts<-->from and to and . In her introduction, Brackett (East Central U.) discusses the elements important to an understanding of traditional romance and presents a brief historical overview of the development of the genre. She includes a few b&w photos of authors and a few movie stills. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews