Volume 1

A supplement to Allibone's Critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors : containing over thirty-seven thousand articles (authors), and enumerating over ninety-three thousand titles / by John Foster Kirk.

  • Kirk, John Foster, 1824-1904.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A supplement to Allibone's Critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors : containing over thirty-seven thousand articles (authors), and enumerating over ninety-three thousand titles / by John Foster Kirk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    PREFACE. From the first publication of Alliboue's Dictionary its value has been recognized and the use of it in public and private libraries has constantly extended and increased. Covering as it does the vvliole field of English literature, and combining biographical, bibliographical, and critical material, it is, in fact, a unique work,—indispensable as a library companion, serviceable to all students of subjects comprehended in its range, and not without interest for readers of every class who may be led by some casual desire for information to consult its pages. Produced by a vast amount of careful and diligent labor, it supplies a general and permanent need, and it has, consequently, had no rival and run no risk of being supplanted,—unlike in this respect a host of dictionaries and other works of reference having a different scope and containing information that has become obsolete through the advance of knowledge or changes of usage and after serving its purpose for a time has been made the basis of wider and more minute I'esearch. It belongs, however, to the very nature of such a work that it should require to be supplemented from time to time. Its substance does not decay; the information which it gives is not superseded by the results of further inquiry; but the matter with which it deals is constantly increasing in bulk, and the accretions call for an extension of space and a fresh amount of labor in order that they may be arranged and stowed in an annex of suitable dimensions. How rapid has been the rate of literary production in recent years—rivalling the accelerated speed of travel and the multiplication of mechanical inventions—will be apparent on the merest glance through these volumes. Covering a comparatively short period, they contain more than half as many pages as the original work, and this although the matter is in many respects given in a more concise form, everything being pruned away which in a strict view of the I'equirements of the task might be considered superfluous. A closer comparison of the two works will show still more plainly the enormous progressive activity of modern authorship and the need of condensation in all non- essential particulars in a record like the present. The original work, according to the statement on the title-page, contains the names and enumerates the works of over forty-six thousand authors. The pi'esent work, confined to a period not exceeding an average of thirty years, contains the names of thirty-seven thousand one hundred and eighty-three authors, or more than four-fifths as many as belong to all the pre- vious centuries and decades which witnessed not only the rise and development but the most brilliant epochs, successive schools, and varied forms of English literature, including at least the earliest works of most of the writers that have shed a waning lustre on the literatui'e of the nineteenth century. For it will hardly be questioned that we now stand not in the noontide but near the close of a day marked by achievements which have a distinct and oi-iginal character in substance and form, with many new types, a fresh infusion of life, and perhaps a more complete union of genius with culture, of imaginative power with the comprehension of realities.