The Cervantes Encyclopedia: [2 volumes]

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Description

Cervantes is undoubtedly one of the world's most influential authors. While scholars continue to debate his role as the inventor of the novel, readers have found centuries of entertainment and inspiration in his works. Don Quixote contains one of the most memorable characters in all of literature and forever shaped the course of literary history and popular culture. This reference is a comprehensive guide to Cervantes' stunning achievements. Included are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries on his works, characters, and allusions, historical persons who figured prominently in his life and works, concepts and terms central to his literary career, and authors, artists, and musicians who were influenced by his writings. While many of the entries are succinct, others provide detailed plot summaries. Each entry closes with a brief bibliography. A chronology and a selected, general bibliography of major editions and critical studies are included.

Reviews

"Professor Mancing and his publishers are to be congratulated on an encyclopedia which is clearly laid out and a delight to browse. The attractively illustrated covers ... encourage the reader to delve into this treasure house of information ... [It] is clearly aimed at university and college libraries. It deserves a place too on the shelves of the large general reference library as well as the library of the serious academic. Truly a significant volume to mark the 400th anniversary of the adventures of the ingenious nobleman on the plains of La Mancha!"-Reference Reviews
"This encyclopedia is a monumental achievement....[i]t is both the largest English-language book and the largest single-authored refernece work in Cervantine studies. As such, it has a unity of purpose, philosophy, and style not ordinarily found in this type of work....So let me conclude by saying that everyone, noephyte or expert, can use this volume with profit....We are all in Mancing's debt....I hope this encyclopedia is available in every academic and major public library."-Modern Language Review
This encyclopedia is a monumental achievement....[i]t is both the largest English-language book and the largest single-authored refernece work in Cervantine studies. As such, it has a unity of purpose, philosophy, and style not ordinarily found in this type of work....So let me conclude by saying that everyone, noephyte or expert, can use this volume with profit....We are all in Mancing's debt....I hope this encyclopedia is available in every academic and major public library.-Modern Language Review
[I]nvaluable core articles--for which this encyclopedia is recommended for any collection supporting the study of literature (and not just Spanish)....Recommended. General and academic readers.-Choice
[T]he reader, by following all the links in these two volumes, can easily, in looking up one thing, be led deeper and deeper into the language and the works of Cervantes. This also leads me to what I find as the value of Mancing's encyclopedia: again and again as I read, I remembered things I had noted the first time through Don Quixote as an undergraduate, but now, if I were reading Cervantes for the first time with this encyclopedia at hand, I would have explanations for some of the many conventions and references so clear to his contemporaries, but which had been so mysterious to me as a beginner; on the other hand, if I wanted to explore what later writers and critics have had to say about Cervantes, that information is here as well. In summary, any reader approaching Cervantes either as a beginner or from outside Spanish studies will benefit immensely from this work.-Sixteenth Century Journal
For academic and large public libraries where there is an interest in Cervantes or Spanish literature in general, this is a fine choice.-Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
Professor Mancing and his publishers are to be congratulated on an encyclopedia which is clearly laid out and a delight to browse. The attractively illustrated covers ... encourage the reader to delve into this treasure house of information ... [It] is clearly aimed at university and college libraries. It deserves a place too on the shelves of the large general reference library as well as the library of the serious academic. Truly a significant volume to mark the 400th anniversary of the adventures of the ingenious nobleman on the plains of La Mancha!-Reference Reviews
So influential was the theme of Cervantes's Don Quixote that the word quixotic (idealistic), without regard to practicality, has derived from it. The second-best selling book in history, it certainly warrants this wonderfully detailed encyclopedia. Extending far beyond Don Quixote, however, it covers all of the author's known work, providing brief commentaries, plot summaries, descriptions of the characters, and information on the history and places mentioned in his works.-Library Journal
"Invaluable core articles--for which this encyclopedia is recommended for any collection supporting the study of literature (and not just Spanish)....Recommended. General and academic readers."-Choice
"The reader, by following all the links in these two volumes, can easily, in looking up one thing, be led deeper and deeper into the language and the works of Cervantes. This also leads me to what I find as the value of Mancing's encyclopedia: again and again as I read, I remembered things I had noted the first time through Don Quixote as an undergraduate, but now, if I were reading Cervantes for the first time with this encyclopedia at hand, I would have explanations for some of the many conventions and references so clear to his contemporaries, but which had been so mysterious to me as a beginner; on the other hand, if I wanted to explore what later writers and critics have had to say about Cervantes, that information is here as well. In summary, any reader approaching Cervantes either as a beginner or from outside Spanish studies will benefit immensely from this work."-Sixteenth Century Journal
"[I]nvaluable core articles--for which this encyclopedia is recommended for any collection supporting the study of literature (and not just Spanish)....Recommended. General and academic readers."-Choice
"For academic and large public libraries where there is an interest in Cervantes or Spanish literature in general, this is a fine choice."-Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
"So influential was the theme of Cervantes's Don Quixote that the word quixotic (idealistic), without regard to practicality, has derived from it. The second-best selling book in history, it certainly warrants this wonderfully detailed encyclopedia. Extending far beyond Don Quixote, however, it covers all of the author's known work, providing brief commentaries, plot summaries, descriptions of the characters, and information on the history and places mentioned in his works."-Library Journal
"[T]he reader, by following all the links in these two volumes, can easily, in looking up one thing, be led deeper and deeper into the language and the works of Cervantes. This also leads me to what I find as the value of Mancing's encyclopedia: again and again as I read, I remembered things I had noted the first time through Don Quixote as an undergraduate, but now, if I were reading Cervantes for the first time with this encyclopedia at hand, I would have explanations for some of the many conventions and references so clear to his contemporaries, but which had been so mysterious to me as a beginner; on the other hand, if I wanted to explore what later writers and critics have had to say about Cervantes, that information is here as well. In summary, any reader approaching Cervantes either as a beginner or from outside Spanish studies will benefit immensely from this work."-Sixteenth Century Journal

Author Bio

HOWARD MANCING is Professor of Spanish at Purdue University. His previous books include The Chivalric World of Don Quixote (1982) and Text, Theory, and Performance: Golden Age Comedia Studies (1994). His numerous articles have appeared in such journals as PMLA, Modern Fiction Studies, Kentucky Romance Quarterly, and College Literature.