Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Price: $75.00

Format:
Hardback 704 pp.
6" x 9"

ISBN-10:
0195428854

ISBN-13:
9780195428858

Publication date:
December 2010

Imprint: OUP Canada

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The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature

Second Edition

Edited by William Toye

Based on the critically acclaimed Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, this second concise edition has been fully updated by editor William Toye. The revised entries include books published up to 2010, in addition to 42 new entries that discuss such notable figures as Joseph Boyden, Yann Martel, Miriam Toews, Michael Crummey, and Lisa Moore.

With over 1,00 entries, this indispensible reference book covers major writers, significant works, awards, genre surveys, and other aspects of the Canadian literary scene, past and present. Toye discusses recent publications from a critical perspective, offering insight and meaning to the literary works that shape our national literature.

Toye's Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature (1997), upon which the concise edition is based, was lauded as a landmark publication, was a Globe and Mail bestseller, and selected as a Quill & Quire book of the year. The first concise version retained all significant entries (in addition to 60 new entries), omitting entries on regional and genre surveys, as well as francophone writers not published in English.

The second edition of The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature remains an indispensible supplement to its distinguished predecessors.

Readership : This updated second edition will appeal to the general reader interested in the Canadian literary scene, or more broadly, the arts in Canada. In particular, students of Canadian Literature, booksellers, and librarians will find the A-Z format makes for an indispensible, quick reference tool.

Reviews

  • "A masterful achievement from the indefatigable William Toye."

    --Eleanor Wachtel, host of CBC's Writers & Company



  • "William Toye has expertly marshalled and written a rich, hugely informative compendium of knowledge about the astonishing diversity of Canadian writing. No library, public or personal, can afford to be without it."

    --Roy MacSkimming, author of The Perilous Trade: Book Publishing in Canada, 1946-2006



  • "For breadth, accuracy, and insight, The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature is still the best quick reference guide to Canadian literature in any medium."

    --Nino Ricci, award-winning author of The Origin of Species



  • "The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature is an indispensable tool and guide for anyone interested in Canadian culture. William Toye has done a superb job of updating entries in the first [concise] edition, which appeared in 2001, and in adding many new entries. ... He is one of Canada's finest editors, and this always elegant and often eloquent volume, combining necessary information and insightful evaluation, clearly bears the mark of the master editor's hand."

    --Professor Zailig Pollock, Department of English Literature, Trent University


  • "Handsome, ... arranged in readable and elegant columns. The prose [is] sharp and effective, crackling with literate enthusiasm. Toye has been working this beat for decades and it may be that in studying, selecting, and analyzing this material he's become more knowledgeable about the breadth of Canadian writing, English and French, than anyone else alive. ... An essential work of reference."

    --National Post


  • "An indispensable guide to all things CanLit."

    --Globe and Mail

Preface to the Second Edition
Contributors
A-Z

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

William Toye was the general editor of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature and co-editor of the second edition. He wrote The St Lawrence (1959) and William Toye on Canadian Literature (2005); edited the popular anthology The Book of Canada (1962); co-edited, with Robert Weaver, The Oxford Anthology of Canadian Literature (2nd edn, 1981); and was a founding editor of The Tamarack Review. He was Editorial Director of Oxford University Press Canada from 1969 until his retirement in 1991. In 1995 he was awarded the Order of Canada, in 1996 he received an honorary M.A. from Oxford University, and in 2004 he was given an honorary doctorate by Victoria College, University of Toronto.

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Special Features

  • Includes 42 new entries on significant authors, new publishers, and celebrated works.
  • Based on The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, a Globe and Mail bestseller and Quill & Quire book of the year.
  • Edited by William Toye, former editorial director of Oxford University Press Canada.
  • Over 1,000 entries, many of which have been updated from the first edition.