Editors: Originally planned by C. A. Read, who collected matter for the first three volumes of the original edition. Completed and edited by T. P. O’Connor, M.P. New edition brought out by Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson.
New edition: The original edition (1879) was published by Blackie. The new edition contains about the same quantity of matter, but large portions of the original edition have been omitted to make room for new matter, which occupies the whole of the fourth volume and a large part of the third. A new Introduction (pp. xi.-xxxiv.) has been prefixed. It is a general survey of Irish literature.
Scope, arrangement, &c.: The authors are arranged chronologically. There is first a sketch (full and carefully done) of each author’s life and works; then follow extracts, as a rule very short, from his works. The principle of selection is to give such extracts as would best illustrate the author’s style, to avoid anything hackneyed, and “anything that would offend the taste of any class or creed.”
In the original edition there was, perhaps inevitably, little of Irish Ireland, still less of Gaelic Ireland. That has been to a certain extent remedied in the new edition. But the old edition had the advantage of containing a mass of information about little known writers and of extracts from curious and rare books.
3. BAKER, Ernest A., M.A., D.Lit., F.L.A.
⸺ A GUIDE TO THE BEST FICTION IN ENGLISH. Sq. 4to. Pp. 813. (Routledge). 21s. New ed., enlarged and thoroughly revised. [1902, Sonnenschein]. 1913.
This new edition is a superb work, deserving the title of an Encyclopedia of English Fiction. It gives information in descriptive notes of between 7,000 and 8,000 works of fiction, including particulars of publishers (both in England and in U.S.A.), prices, and date of publication. It comprises every description of novel, translations of important continental and even non-European fiction, and of early stories and sagas from the Norse and from Celtic languages. The Guide is selective—not everything in the novel line is included—but it is most comprehensive. The arrangement is first by nationalities (English, American, Celtic, pp. 517-521, French, &c.). Each of these divisions is subdivided according to the century in which the book was published, and the entries under the various centuries are arranged alphabetically according to names of authors. The Index, which runs to 170 pp., gives full reference to Authors, Titles, and Subjects. Every specific subject illustrated in the works is indexed with extraordinary accuracy and completeness.
4. ⸺ A GUIDE TO HISTORICAL FICTION. Pp. xii. + 566. 1914.
A new ed. of the Author’s History in Fiction; a companion to the preceding and uniform with it in size, publisher, and price. As in the case of the former work, full bibliographical particulars and descriptive notes are given. The main arrangement is according to countries. Under each country it is chronological. The Index (140 pp.) gives information as full as in the preceding work. The standard of selection is “the extent to which a story illustrates any given period of history.”—(Pref.). Ireland is not dealt with separately, the history of the British Isles being taken as a whole.
5. ⸺ HISTORY IN FICTION. Two Vols. 16mo. Pp. 228 + 253. (Routledge). 2s. 6d. each. n.d. (1906).