Dictionary of Literary Biography

Published by Gale, the 375-volume set[1] covers a wide variety of literary topics, periods, and genres, with a focus on American and British literature.

[2] The series editors write that "Our purpose is to make literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and the reading public, while satisfying the needs of teachers and researchers.

"[3] They define literature as "the intellectual commerce of a nation; not merely belles lettres but as that ample and complex process by which ideas are generated, shaped, and transmitted."

(emphasis in original) The series thus includes biographies of historians, journalists, publishers, book collectors, and screenwriters.

[1] The series is currently published and distributed by Thomson Gale, but produced in Columbia, South Carolina by Bruccoli Clark Layman, a company composed of the well-known scholars Matthew J. Bruccoli and Richard Layman and the now deceased businessman, C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr.[1] Michael Rogers wrote that "it is hands-down the best overall literary reference work ever published" but that many reference librarians had probably never heard of it.