The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World: A Reader's Companion to the People, Places, Events, and Everyday Life of the Victorian Era (Henry Holt Reference Book) - Hardcover

In a period when publishers are rushing histories of the 20th century into print, what a pleasure it is to encounter two titles on the 19th century. Though the two books differ greatly in concept and neither is complete in coverage, they help fill a surprising void in general histories of the previous century. Editors Corey and Ochoa (The New York Public Library Book of Answers, S. & S., 1993) adhere tightly to the constraints of Victoria's reign, 1837-1901. Their encyclopedia's focus is Western, but it cannot help but cover the world, as did the English presence at the time. Entries are strictly alphabetical, brief yet informative, and broad in scope, illuminating the great strides made in the arts, sciences, medicine, and philosophy in this dynamic era. The pages are somewhat stark and would have been improved if lavished with more illustrations from an age that abhorred the unadorned. See references to related entries are included throughout the text; a seven-page bibliography of books covering various aspects of Victorian life and culture completes the volume. Ultimately, this is more a mirror of an era of thought than a comprehensive history of an age, but it may prove a useful handbook if the researcher can think first of time rather than of subject. The volume from Shifflett (history, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and SUNY) is part of the "Almanacs of American Life" series, four volumes intended to flesh out periods of our history with facts, figures, and articles on cultural life. The format is a mixture of original text, brief biographies, historical tables and charts, chronologies, and illustrations, all organized under broad subject headings. Why the odd period of 1876 to 1913 was chosen is unexplained; apparently, no volume of the series is planned to cover the period from 1800 to 1875, and carrying the Victorian designation to 1913 erroneously embraces such solidly 20th-century personalities as Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Ford. Nevertheless, the concept is well done and presents a wealth of specialized information in a tool that covers the social history of the last quarter of the 19th century better than any existing title. Librarians will find more material here than in The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World but covering a shorter period. A quick check will probably show that most libraries have more on Colonial than on Victorian America, and either of these two titles will help clarify an era of impressive advancement. For all libraries.?James Moffet, Baldwin P.L., Birmingham, Mich.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This reader's companion expands the concept of the Victorian era to encompass developments not only in the British Empire but also on the Continent and in the U.S. A check of two letters of the alphabet indicates that nearly half the entries deal with subjects not normally associated directly with Britain. Most major figures are given an entry, with the occasional exception such as Offenbach or Proudhon, and a few people treated here, such as Matisse, Colette, and Dreiser, would not normally be considered Victorian by any definition. There are articles on countries and colonies, on such topics as the fedora and the ferris wheel, the California Gold Rush and the dime novel, but few general articles on such broad topics as architecture or the theater. The attempt to cover so much in a volume this size is not conducive to in-depth treatment, and a number of important "Victorians" in the British sense do not get entries, for example, Nassau Senior, Jowett, Henty, Charles Booth and Henry Mayhew, Marie Corelli, and "Mark Rutherford." There is the occasional table (e.g., "British Prime Ministers and U.S. Presidents" ) but no general chronology for the period. The unsigned entries do not include bibliographic references, and the brief unannotated bibliography at the back does not always cite the most recent edition of a source. The compilers have produced other reference titles, such as The Book of Answers and The Dictionary of Film Quotations.

This handy one-stop source for information about an important period might be a useful addition to circulating collections but is not an essential purchase for general reference collections. Titles such as Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia (Garland, 1988) and The 1890s: An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art, and Culture (Garland, 1992) provide a more focused, scholarly approach to this era.