Edwin Arlington Robinson and the critics : a bibliography of secondary sources with selective annotations /

Boswell's bibliography serves to update Nancy Joyner's E.A. Robinson: A Reference Guide (CH, Oct '78), but does not add a great deal. Joyner's book ends with works published in 1976; although Boswell does not specify cutoff dates, an online search indicates that she includes only materials published before 1983. The organization used by Joyner (arranging criticism by year, then alphabetically by author) is more useful for analyzing trends in scholarship; Boswell lists all her 1,383 items alphabetically by author. On the other hand, Boswell's annotations are generally longer and more substantive than Joyner's, and Boswell includes some criticism published before 1976 that Joyner omits. Boswell's subject index is adequate, enabling readers to identify criticism of specific poems. The introductory material, consisting only of a short preface, is disappointingly brief. Although annotations are selective, criteria for selection are not given. Despite its flaws, recommended for all academic libraries as a supplement to Joyner. -M. M. Bohn, University of Nebraska at Omaha