ABSTRACT
The most elaborate of the general bibliographies is CBEL (The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature), edited by F. W. Bateson (paradoxically, of Oxford), 4 vols., 1940. This lists every English author and book with any claim to literary distinction from Anglo-Saxon times to c. 1900. Semi-literary matter, such as political pamphlets, newspapers, travel books, schoolbooks, sermons, and scientific treatises, is also included in considerable detail. There are long lists of modern books and articles about English literature in all its aspects down to c. 1935, and a substantial Supplement by George Watson (1957) brings this secondary material down to c. 1955. The arrangement is chronological and by genres within five main periods. Vol. IV is the Index. George Watson’s one-volume abbreviation of the whole work (1958) covers some four hundred authors in all and includes the principal twentieth-century figures as well. A detailed twentieth-century volume is imminent and Watson is editing a revision of the original work.
