The Encyclopedia of Fantasy

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The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
Clute & Grant - The Encyclopedia of Fantasy Coverart.png
Cover of the first edition
Authors
Cover artist Peter Goodfellow
LanguageEnglish
Subject Fantasy
Publisher Orbit Books UK; St. Martin's Press US
Publication date
3 April 1997
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback), online
Pages832 pp (first edition)
ISBN 978-1-85723-368-1
OCLC 37106061

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy is a 1997 reference work covering fantasy fiction, edited by John Clute and John Grant. As of November 2012, the full text of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy is available online, as a companion to the online edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . [1] Other than adding death dates, there are no plans to update the encyclopaedia. [2]

Contents

The book was well-received on publication, receiving the Hugo Award, [3] World Fantasy Award, [4] and Locus Award in 1998. [5]

Format and content

The Encyclopedia was published in a format that matches the 1993 second edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. It is slightly smaller in terms of content, containing 1,049 alphabetical pages, over 4,000 entries and approximately one million words, the bulk of which were written by Clute, Grant and Ashley. A later CD-ROM edition contains numerous revisions.

The Encyclopedia uses a similar system of categorisation to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, but does not include an index of theme entries. A theme index was later included in the online addenda. One of the major differences is that there are no entries related to publishing.

Reception

Characterising the book as "an excellent and highly readable source for fantasy", the industry publication Library Journal described The Encyclopedia of Fantasy as "the first of its kind". [6]

Rob Latham writing for Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts called it "a sprawling map of the field's major authors and texts and an extraordinary cohesive argument", "an indispensable work of reference" and "perhaps the most substantial critical analysis ever to focus on fantasy literature and art". [7]

Lawrence Person reviewed it for Nova Express. The review examines the work together with Clute's related project, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . Person described Encyclopedia of Fantasy as addressing a broader, less defined genre, employing newly coined terms by Clute to categorize motifs, which may require readers to familiarize themselves with the terminology. Person also appreciates Clute's overarching theory of fantasy scattered across related entries. Person finds Encyclopedia of Fantasy more constrained than the other in the context of genre boundaries and market definitions. Some omissions include no entries on authors such as Neal Barrett Jr. and Shirley Jackson. Overall, the article recommends both encyclopedias as essential for serious scholars and enthusiasts of speculative fiction, emphasizing their value for research and casual reference despite minor flaws. [8]

Awards

Editions

See also

References

  1. ↑ "At last the Encyclopedia of Fantasy is free and searchable online!". io9 . 27 November 2012. Archived from the original on 29 November 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  2. ↑ "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy". 1 December 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Hugo Awards: 1998 Hugo Awards". 26 July 2007. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
  4. 1 2 "World Fantasy Convention: 1998 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees". Archived from the original on 22 September 2008. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
  5. 1 2 "The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1998 Locus Awards". Archived from the original on 8 October 2010. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
  6. ↑ Dollard, Peter A. (1997). "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy". Library Journal (1 October 1997). Retrieved 10 July 2008.[ permanent dead link ]
  7. ↑ Latham, Rob (1998). Clute, John; Grant, John (eds.). ""The Encyclopedia of Fantasy" as a "critical tour de force"". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 9 (1 (33)): 69–76. ISSN   0897-0521.
  8. ↑ Person, Lawrence (1998). "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute and Peter Nicholls". Nova Express. 4 (16): 26.
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