Biographical Dictionary of Literature
“Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom
but they dare to go it alone.”
— John Updike
Much of the information in this section was taken from John W. Cousin’s A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. Some data, particularly that which involves writers in languages other than English, has been taken from an older encyclopedia. Information from other sources is usually identified as such. I have taken it upon myself to edit or supplement most of the older entries, and to add to them newer ones, particularly those involving more recent authors.
LIST OF CONTRACTIONS USED THROUGHOUT THE WORK
| b. | born | Edin. | Edinburgh |
| c. | circa | fl. | flourished |
| Camb. | Cambridge | Glas. | Glasgow |
| Coll. | College | m. | married |
| coll. | collected | Oxf. | Oxford |
| cr. | created | pres. | president |
| d. | died | pub. | published |
| dau. | daughter | Prof. | Professor |
| ed. | educated | sec. | secretary |
| { edition | s. | son | |
| ed. | { editor | Univ. | University |
| { edited |
The following list gives some of the best known earlier works of biography, still very appealing and very much worth perusing:
Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature and English and American Authors, 1859-71, Supplement, by J.F. Kirke, 1891; W. Hazlitt, Collections and Notes of Early English Literature, 1876-93; R. Chambers, Cyclopædia of English Literature, 1876, 1901; Halkett and Laign, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature, 1882-88; Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, 1885, etc., re-issue, 1908, etc.; Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography, ed. by J. Grant Wilson and John Fiske, 1887, etc.; J. Thomas, Universal Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, 1887-89; Men and Women of the Time, 15th edit., ed. by Victor G. Plarr, 1889.
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