Dictionary of Literary Biography

The Dictionary of Literary Biography ( DLB short ) is an English author lexicon in 349 volumes to date (as of August 2008). It contains biographical essays on major authors from different areas, so as writers, journalists, essayists, writers and historians. Due to the large scope of the work but less important authors and those who are barely known today can be considered. Is laid the DLB from the publisher Thomson Gale Farmington Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.

History

The first volumes were published in 1978 and contained only North American authors. Since the early 1980s, British, and later non-English speaking authors were added.

The DLB is constantly expanding; there appear several volumes per year. In addition to the printed version, there is also an online version.

Structure of the article

The articles begin with a list of the works of the author and possibly a selection of important secondary literature. Then follows a description of the life and work, the length of which depends on the meaning of the author. Many texts are illustrated, for example, by black and white photos, facsimile manuscript pages or front pages of the first editions. Overall, the articles are about between three and 30 pages long.

Overall structure of the lexicon

The lexicon is not alphabetically but thematically. A volume is devoted to a specific topic, such as the authors of a particular genre in a particular era in a particular country or language area. Each volume is edited by a specialist of the corresponding area, who also wrote a foreword for the book. At the end of the volume there is an alphabetical index to the articles of all previously published volumes.

Related series

From 1980 to 2002 saw a year the DLB Yearbook, which documented the literary scene of the year. It contained new releases, reports on the awarding of literary prizes, conferences, an obituary, etc.

From 1982 to 1998, the DLB documentary series appeared, a number of volumes, each only a smaller group, a single author or a work devoted.

For smaller libraries was published by 1987-89, the six-volume Concise dictionary of American literary biography, which includes the most important American writers. A similar work on the most important British writers is the Concise dictionary of British literary biography, which was published in eight volumes in 1991-92.