British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond

Reviewed by Ryan Fong, Associate Professor of English, Kalamazoo College on 5/15/23

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

I reviewed this textbook as I began thinking about which text to assign for my upcoming course on nineteenth century British literature. I have used the Norton and Broadview anthologies in the past, and I really wanted to find one that was open source, to help bring down the textbook costs for my students. This textbook covers twentieth century literature (and some from the twenty-first century), so is not as comprehensive as more period specific anthologies, so I understand that it needs to strike a balance across this time span, but because one of the key benefits of an online publication is the ability to expand its offerings beyond what is feasible in print, I found the selections to be lacking. Certainly the usual suspects are there, but the opportunity to include a wider and more diverse array of voices in the nineteenth century was unfortunately not taken. If I were to use this textbook, I would still need to do a good amount of supplementation, especially in including writers of color, which is a big priority of mine.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The anthology included basic and accurate information, from what I could tell. I did not find any significant errors as I went though.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 1

This anthology does not feel like it reflects the current moment of the field of nineteenth century literature, especially around race and (to a lesser extent) gender. It feels very much like a throwback to older editions of anthologies, and some of the significant additions and reframings offered by print anthologies (Broadview especially) are nowhere to be found here. The headnotes and introduction include good, basic information, but again, this anthology is not doing anything the would help undergraduate students get excited about making connections between these periods and our own present moment.

Clarity rating: 5

I thought the headnotes and introduction were clearly written. It was all very basic information, but it was a coherent, if necessarily limited, overview.

Consistency rating: 4

I understand that copyright makes it necessary to link works not in the public domain, but I found it jarring to have full text included in older periods and links only in the later.

Modularity rating: 5

This would be very easy to excerpt from for teaching purposes.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The texts were organized in a traditional way, which made the logic very legible. Again though, the framings and arrangements were all very traditional in their orientation.

Interface rating: 5

No significant issues found.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No significant issues found.

Cultural Relevance rating: 1

This is a very white-centered text. And it also shows a bent toward writers who are men. As I mentioned above, this feels like a version of the commercially available anthologies from two or three editions ago. It does not reflect the vibrant conversations taking place in nineteenth century studies around racial and cultural diversity. Reviewing this actually made me more inclined to return to the print editions that I'm more familiar with, not less -- given how those are more reflective of current debates, trends, and priorities.

Reviewed by Veronica Goosey, Associate Professor, Garden City Community College on 12/9/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The text includes selections from the expected canonical writers, and also includes several significant women writers from the periods. Unfortunately, there are only 2 writers of color represented, both in the modern/contemporary section, and no Black writers at all. This will require supplementing instruction with other texts, but I'm not opposed to doing that if I can find similarly open sources to save students on textbook cost.
The textbook overall offers relatively few selections per writer, which negates one of the benefits of an electronic text--not being limited by the weight or space of a physical text. I would have preferred to see some essayists and other prose writers beyond Dorothy Wordsworth and Mary Shelley represented in the Romantic period along with the poets. Similarly, while I understand the appeal and portability of poems, I think the Victorian period is section would benefit from representing more novelists and prose writers than Eliot and Dickens.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The text of the works are generally accurate and free of bias.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The selections are appropriate.

Clarity rating: 2

The introductions are brief, but accurate and easy to read. The problematic issue, for me, is the lack of editorial apparatus to help students read and interpret the literary works. None of the selections have dates of composition or publication given with the titles, though some are included in authorial headnotes. None of the poetry has line numbers, which makes it difficult to read and reference together in the classroom. There are no footnotes, even in poems like Eliot's "The Waste Land" where they were written by the author and generally included as part of the poem in authoritative editions. While I can supplement much of the missing material in lecture, I think the lack of footnotes and translations makes individual student reading more difficult.

Consistency rating: 5

Each part and selection is clearly organized and and uses generally accepted periodizing terms.

Modularity rating: 3

The table of contents is helpful, but internal hyperlinking would be more helpful. The PDF form makes it difficult to move quickly between works. That said, the periodization builds in some modularity.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Chronological periods are generally expected in an introductory or survey course.

Interface rating: 4

The text is formatted well for online reading, though a linked table of contents would be very helpful for improving navigation. When I printed a section for students, it had to be reformatted since line lengths in some poems were not preserved.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any glaring grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

While the text is inclusive of women writers and represents some LGBTQ+ writers, it is not representative of writers of color. It would be beneficial to include selections from colonized peoples, especially in the Victorian and Modern/Postmodern sections. The text does include a representative group of texts from canonical writers for teaching these periods in a survey level course.

Comments

I would be willing to use this textbook when supplemented by other contextual sources and readings.

Reviewed by Nancy Taylor, Senior Instructor, Radford University on 8/5/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

I have used this text in a survey course for two semesters and though I supplemented our course readings with other free, online sources to fill gaps that were missing diversity, students found British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond to be easy to use and they greatly appreciated the fact that it was free. While this text covers the traditional cannon of British writers, I expected it to include more diverse writers, especially as it moved into modern periods. I definitely had more choices of some inclusive writers with other print anthologies, but having a free source was enough of a bonus to adopt it for the course. With so many stories, poems, and essays that are available as free, online, and either out of copyright or published by authors online, it is easy to supplement this text with some other readings.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I have not noticed any glaring inaccuracies, though I mainly recommend this text for a freshman or sophomore level course. I would expect a text for an upper level course to include more historical information and background information in order to be even more accurate and comprehensive.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

British Literature II would be more relevant for the long-term if it included more women, writers of color, and LGBTQ+ writers, especially as it moves into Modern and Postmodern periods. One example would be to include a story by Booker Prize winner, Bernadine Evaristo.

Clarity rating: 4

An addition to this text that would be add more clarity would be some notes either as footnotes or line notes, and to add modern translations where needed. Since this is a good, basic text to use with freshmen and sophomores, they would get a deeper meaning from it if notes and explanations were handy.

Consistency rating: 5

This text is consistent in layout, design, and framework.

Modularity rating: 5

Headings and subheadings are intuitive and are not distracting to the flow of the reading.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

This online textbook follows the chronological order used in most anthologies and that makes it easy to use. I did not notice any inconsistencies in organization.

Interface rating: 4

The layout of the Table of Contents makes this text easy to follow; however, hyperlinks in the TOC to the readings would make this anthology so much easier to use.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any glaring grammatical or layout errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

In order to be more inclusive and address additional historic (e.g. slavery) and contemporary (e.g. racism and gender) issues, this text deserves an update that will make it much more inclusive in scope. It already has a broad, canonical base. Adding inclusive literature will make faculty more likely to use it.

Comments

I will use this text, adding in the much needed inclusive literature as supplemental sources. I would love to see a huge update to this text that includes marginalized groups and touches on important trends and issues from the Romantic Period into the Twentieth Century. The text is easy to use and my students like having a well-organized, free, online text.

Reviewed by Henna Messina, Assistant Professor of English, Eastern New Mexico University on 12/29/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond presents an outdated and limited conception of British literature. Most glaringly, it neglects to include any Black writers (such as Olaudah Equiano, Ottabah Cug0ano, Mary Prince, and Mary Seacole in the 18th and 19th century, or any 20th and 21st century African or Black British writers such as Chinua Achebe, Frantz Fanon, Zadie Smith, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). While I appreciate the presence of female Romantic poets, there is an absence of generic coverage such as philosphical and political extracts (Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution; Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman; and William Wilberforce's Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade); discussions of the Gothic novel prior to Frankenstein (such as excerpts of Ann Radcliffe or Wollstonecraft's gothic feminist fiction); or extracts from any of Jane Austen's works. Similarly, the Victorian section lacks generic breadth and could include excerpts of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Marx and Engel's critiques of capitalism, and William Pater's The Renaissance. The 20th century section's inclusion of Heart of Darkness would benefit from Chinua Achebe's essay "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." This section also links out several times to women's writing, which feels like a metaphorical way of minimizing their contributions.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

The book's accuracy is fairly solid, but I did notice several of the links lead the reader to sites that don't load or no longer contain the relevant content.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

As I mention in the section above re: "Comprehensiveness," this book needs a more robust accounting of the Transatlantic slave trade, abolition, and the postcolonial reckoning that flourished in the 20th century and continues to develop today. Conceptions of British literature as white and polite do not stand up to scrutiny if we are trying to teach students an accurate picture of the last two and a half centuries.

Clarity rating: 5

I found the introductory sections concise and useful in framing the scope of each period.

Consistency rating: 5

The text is consistent in presenting the information.

Modularity rating: 5

The book's sections are broken down into digestible sections.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The book is well-organized in a chronological fashion as is standard with literature anthologies.

Interface rating: 3

I really wish the book had a Table of Contents with bookmarks for all the sections so that readers could easy jump through the text without scrolling through the entire thing.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

I noticed a small handful of spelling or typographical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

As I've mentioned already, this book lacks a diverse perspective on British literature from the late 18th century though the late 20th century. While the 20th century rightly includes writers like Doris Lessing, Anita Desai, and Salman Rushdie, it neglects Black British writers, and with the exception of Anna Barbauld's poem "Epistle to William Wilberforce," lacks a robust engagement with the British slave trade and abolition. I would like to see more queer writers as well, such as Amy Levy and Vernon Lee in the Victorian section.

Reviewed by Emilee Howland, Senior Lecturer, University of Wisconsin - Superior on 9/20/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

Anthology creators become part of the formation of canon, willingly or not, and as such the decisions they make carry a heavy burden. This text relies on a lot of white male authors to fill the various literary eras. Students and instructors want to see an anthology that is more inclusive and one that represents the diversity of time and place. It is disappointing that there isn't more attention paid to diversity in this text. It is confusing at times that for some authors their more well-known selections aren't included. It is very puzzling, and somewhat disappointing, that Mary Wollstonecraft is not included, except in biographical notes about other authors (including Mary Shelley). An index and glossary would be helpful, as would footnotes or marginal glosses to help students with unfamiliar ideas, vocabulary, or historical elements.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

While the background information, historical context sections, and author bios are useful, there are some factual errors. Additionally, the information provided is very surface level, which would be fine if there were additional notes provided in the form of footnotes or endnotes. The information does include information about class, race, and gender issues of the eras, but then the text does not provide literary examples to further that conversation in a meaningful way.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

This comment will go along with my comment on comprehensiveness. I would like to see more diversity in the authors and texts chosen so that students have a better understanding of the diversity in literature across time. Additionally, I'd like to see more contemporary authors listed in the "Twentieth Century and Beyond" section or for there to be a new section on twenty-first century authors as there's not much representation there in terms of the early 21st century. Bringing in more contemporary authors would also encourage the inclusion of more diverse authors and themes. The "recommended readings" are quite dated and thus do not represent the most up-to-date ideas about the time, authors, or texts.

Clarity rating: 3

Background and historical context sections, as well as the author bios are clear and concise, though there are some factual errors, as noted. The editors provide an ok amount of information to help students contextualize the time, the author, and the work, though not enough importance is placed on some of the larger issues of the time such as slavery, racism, or sexism. Because there are some errors, and at times the info is too broad, instructors will be faced with a significant amount of labor to correct or supply additional information/readings. Timelines for each section would be useful to help students see the various authors within a particular time period as there are no dates provided for the individual selections.

Consistency rating: 5

Very clear. The table of contents makes it very clear what will be covered and there is consistency from section to section.

Modularity rating: 4

It would be very easy to use this text in a class as the authors are each presented individually with biographical notes before their literary selections. An instructor could easily choose which texts to include in a course and students would have an easy time finding the material. This would work for an instructor taking a chronological approach, but it would be difficult to manage thematically.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The literary time periods are presented in chronological fashion and that, along with the background and historical context, helps situate each era for students. The author selections are in rough chronological order within their own literary era.

Interface rating: 2

One of the major issues with the text occurs once a reader is immersed in the text. There is no marker at the top of the page like one might expect in a textbook to let the reader know what author and text they are on. Instead, every page just says "British Literature II" and then the literary era e.g. "The Twentieth Century and Beyond." It is very disorienting. Relatedly, another issue I encountered is one that exists for PDFs in particular. If an author is listed on page 3, for example, and I try to navigate to page 3, I get the third page of the document, which isn't the same. The static header and the issue between document page number and location could be very confusing. Once a reader is in the middle of the text, they will not know where they are in the textbook or if they are even reading the correct selection as there are no page cues to help guide them. A link back to the ToC on each page, as well as links from the ToC, would be especially useful for anyone trying to read several different texts for class. Having to scroll all the way back to the beginning is time consuming and frustrating.

Later twentieth century selections include links to websites. This would be a challenge for students who are using this textbook without internet connection.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any grammatical issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 2

As stated, the text is not as diverse nor as inclusive as it should be. It does not cover issues related to slavery, misogyny, sexism, racism, decolonization, or other ideas related to the time periods represented. The text fails to account for non-white, male voices throughout. Though it makes references to some issues, and those references are handled respectfully, the text does not provide examples to help students see the bigger pictures and the smaller details of those times and issues. In this way, it makes those issues seem insignificant, since they are not represented in the text selections. Many anthologies of literature fail to provide adequate representation, so I was hoping for a new text that would include more voices.

Comments

The text omits many of the texts and ideas I am planning to cover in my own course, so I will not choose this text for my students.

Reviewed by Sarah Ficke, Associate Professor, Marymount University on 5/21/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

This text covers what I would consider the traditional canon of British writers of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods. However, that canon is very outdated. The authors represented in this text are overwhelmingly white and male, which misrepresents the diversity of perspectives and people that existed in Britain during the periods that are covered. Even within the traditional authors, some key texts seem to be missing (like notable poems by Lord Byron and Elizabeth Barrett Browning). Additionally, the section covering the second half of the 20th century seems haphazardly assembled. There is no index or glossary.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

There are several factual errors in the historical context sections of this text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

This text does not reflect the most relevant or up-to-date presentation of this material. It lacks important context about the social and political issues that shaped these periods (like the abolition movement, imperialism, women's rights, etc.) and guidance about how to read the included works in light of these issues. A more balanced approach that recognizes both the aesthetic trends of these periods and historical issues is more common in anthologies used today. The recommended readings for each section are also more than 20 years old, and so don't reflect the most current research on these periods.

Clarity rating: 3

The prose is moderately clear, but there are some awkward or confusing sentences sprinkled throughout. A more significant issue is that the textbook lacks footnotes to clarify information and references that will be unfamiliar to most students. It also lacks dates for all of the works included, and the illustrations. This would make it difficult for students to see how a particular work fits into the period or corresponding historical events unless the instructor gives them that information as a supplement to the text.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is consistent in its formatting from section to section until it reaches the later 20th century, when links start to replace full text. This is probably due to copyright concerns, but it is jarring, and opens the textbook up to becoming less functional when links break or change.

Modularity rating: 3

The text is broken into sections by period (Romantic, Victorian, and The Twentieth Century and Beyond), and within those sections are entries for each author, organized chronologically. It should function well for a course organized in that way, but for a course with thematic units the instructor would have to do a fair amount of work to choose appropriate readings and direct the students to them.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The organization is reasonably clear.

Interface rating: 4

The interface is a pdf that is very much like a book. It would be easier to navigate with a linked table of contents. There are too many pages for scrolling to be effective for navigation.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text was free of noticeable grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 2

The text does not adequately address the issues of slavery, abolition, colonization, decolonization, misogyny, or scientific racism that shaped many of the included works, and that have had significant impacts on the world our students live in. It is not inclusive.

Comments

This text leaves out many of the works and most of the context I'd include in a survey of British literature of these periods, so I am unlikely to use it in my courses.

Reviewed by Danielle Price, Assistant Professor, James Madison University on 2/27/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

No perfect anthology for the British literature survey course exists. For English majors, I have used the Longman Anthology of British Literature (Volumes 2A -2C) as well as The Broadview Anthology of British Literature (From 1945 to the Twenty-First Century); for my current course with nonmajors I am using the Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors (Volume 2). I was hoping to find an open-source textbook for teaching nonmajors, many of whom do not buy the “required” textbook. British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond is not that book, and it certainly would not be suitable for any serious study of British literature. Why assign a literature textbook if the literary works are not annotated? I was puzzled to find not only no explanatory notes, but also no line numbers for poems. There is no index, and no glossary of terms. As for the works themselves: British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond is completely inadequate in its coverage of the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. Only three of the authors presented are still alive; none were born after 1947. The selections for the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods are fine if unimaginative. It feels curmudgeonly to gripe about individual selections, but some choices are head scratching. Why include most of Frankenstein, but omit the crucial sections in which the creature gains an education secondhand from the DeLacey family? Why include an excerpt from Hard Times instead of all of a Christmas Carol? This anthology is missing what is one of the best features of all current comprehensive anthologies (including the Longman Anthology, Norton Anthology of English Literature, Broadview Anthology of British Literature): clustered readings on particular subjects (e.g. on the abolition of the slave trade, or the “woman question”). Such sections expand the range of voices (bringing in more popular selections, or writings by people of color).

Content Accuracy rating: 1

The anthology includes a section on Anita Desai, born in 1937. The work included in this section, connected with a hyperlink, is to “The Domestic Maid,” published in 2014 by (as far as I can tell) a different writer with the same name. This mistake is unacceptable.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The sections that provide “Recommended Readings” are outdated.

Clarity rating: 3

The prose is clear but not compelling. The language is below university level.

Consistency rating: 2

Many of the later readings are provided by hyperlink rather than reproduced in full. Thus, the format is inconsistent. Note also problems with hyperlinks such as the one for A Room of One’s Own (University of Adelaide has discontinued its ebook site).

Modularity rating: 3

The textbook is divided into three parts: The Romantic Era, The Victorian Era, The Twentieth Century and Beyond. The last section should be subdivided.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

See above on modularity.

Interface rating: 3

There are no links from the “Table of Contents” to the specific works listed. See my comments in the “Consistency” and “Accuracy” sections.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

British Literature as a field contains many works that by our contemporary standards are “culturally insensitive” or offensive—in terms of class, gender, race, sexuality, etc. Some of those works are in this anthology. The problem is not the presence of these works, but the lack of readings by British writers of color, and the lack of specific sections addressing subjects like slavery, imperialism, decolonialization, etc.

Comments

I was hoping to find an open source book that would fit the needs of my students. Instead, I gained appreciation for the anthologies I have used. If instructors are looking for low cost options, I would suggest linking the syllabus to selections from the University of Toronto’s Representative Poetry Online and from Project Gutenberg. Then, require students to round out the syllabus by purchasing contemporary books written by living authors. Or, choose a comprehensive anthology that gives you room to be creative, and suggest your students purchase used copies.

Reviewed by Nicole Lobdell, Assistant Professor of English, DePauw University on 1/7/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

I've used both Norton and Broadview anthologies to teach the British Literature II survey course (Romantics to Present) and I really wanted to like this anthology so that I could offer students a free alternative. However, after reviewing the anthology, I don't think I would use it in class because it recreates so many problems with anthologies -- namely that the authors included are 98% white. There are only two authors of color that I recognized in this anthology and both of those in the 20th-century section. If an instructor wanted to use this in a course, they would need to do a lot of additional supplementing of other writers and texts to give students a more comprehensive and diverse picture of British literature from the Romantics to the present. At that point, one might as well use Norton or Broadview which are at least more inclusive and diverse in their representation than this anthology.

I also found some of the choices of texts a bit odd. The only text included for Byron is Manfred. No Don Juan? While Manfred is interesting, it is not a good, or the best, representation of Byron's work. The only text for Christina Rossetti is Goblin Market, and while Goblin Market is a very good poem, I would expect to see at least a few of her other shorter poems such as "Winter: My Secret" or "When I am dead, my dearest." There is nothing from Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, but 30+ pages from Joyce's Ulysses. To end the anthology with Salman Rushdie and not include other contemporary writers such as Hanif Kureishi or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie seems incredibly short sighted. There may be copyright issues that prevent the inclusion of more contemporary writers' works, but there are in fact no Black writers in this whole anthology, which copyright aside, makes this anthology extremely problematic and not suitable for my classroom.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

I am troubled that there are no footnotes and no glossing of unfamiliar words for students. This seems especially problematic in the Romantic and Victorian sections, which students can struggle with on the basis of style and language. I am also concerned that in the sections titled "Recommended Reading" the citations are incomplete, missing basic publication information such as the press which published the recommended readings. In anthologies, one would also expect an index or dictionary of literary terms and unfortunately this anthology also lacks that tool.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

This text reproduces a view of British literature that, while frustratingly biased to colonized writers, writers of color, and LGBTQ+ writers, still persists in many academic circles.

Clarity rating: 4

The information included is lucid and accessible to many readers.

Consistency rating: 5

This text uses accepted terminology and the standard labels (Romantic, Victorian, etc.,) for these periods.

Modularity rating: 4

I found using such a large PDF to become quickly cumbersome without internally hyperlinking the titles of works.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The text moves chronologically and follows the organization of other anthologies.

Interface rating: 5

I did not notice any interface issues, navigation problems, or distortion of images.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

I did not find any glaring grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

I would not use this text based on its omissions of writers of color and its omissions of colonized writers. While there are some women writers and LGBTQ+ writers included, there could - and should - be many more.

Reviewed by Matthew Davis, Assistant Professor, General Faculty, University of Virginia on 12/13/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

All of the major authors I would expect to see are included. There are quite a few women authors included (e.g., A. L. Barbauld, C. Smith, E. Bronte, C, Rossetti, E. B. Browning, G. Eliot, V. Woolf). However, there are many fewer selections for each author than you would get in the Norton Anthology of British Literature, which is the textbook this book would substitute for in many classes. To take just one example, Byron is here, as one would expect, but the only text by Byron included is Manfred. There is not a single stanza from Don Juan! And not a single stanza from Childe Harold! Not a single lyric poem! Why not? Surely those works are out of copyright?

Also it should be noted that the Table of Contents is quite misleading in terms of the ideas it conveys about coverage. For example, the TOC lists six Stevie Smith poems, but if you go to the page listed, you'll see it merely links to web versions of these. The links are to a good, reliable website, but I felt it was somewhat misleading to say that the poem is in the book if it just links out to a website.

Likewise, "Waiting for Godot" is listed as included, but in fact it is merely linked. I clicked on the link and it took me to the play, but the text there had no line numbers and wasn't paginated. I found myself wondering how students would refer to the text in discussions or papers. They could print it, of course, but many would not and, even if they did, each student would end up with different page breaks. It would be extremely hard to direct someone's attention to a specific passage. The passage in question might be on page 20 for some and page 24 for others. In other words, "linking out" to a work, even a reliable one is not a great substitute for have line numbers and/or page number that can be used to direct large numbers of students to one passage.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The sections I read seemed accurate and free of obvious bias.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Consensus is still emerging about some recent writers. Which ones will be regarded as must-read classics in 50 years? I don't think anyone knows for sure. Since that is such a difficult question to answer at this point, no anthology is likely to please all instructors. The editor of this book includes a handful of frequently-taught post-WW2 authors but leaves out numerous others. This, however, I view as an unavoidable problem.

Clarity rating: 3

The brief introductions seem fine, but I was stunned to discover there are no footnotes (or line numbers) for most (perhaps all) of the poems and prose selections. I want my students to have footnotes for Eliot and Yeats and many other authors. I can't imagine assigning The Waste Land or Ulysses without notes. This seems to me a serious shortcoming of this book.

Consistency rating: 5

No complaints in this area.

Modularity rating: 5

I do not see any problems in this area.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Organization is chronological and very much like the Norton Anthologies, but without the thematic clusters the more recent editions of the Norton include.

Interface rating: 5

Layout seems good. Attractive and readable. Color pictures here and there represent a (rare) area in which the book is superior to some Norton anthology editions.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No problems that I noticed.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I didn't notice any problems. Some of the bibliographies and lists of selective readings don't go much beyond 1980, however.

Comments

I'm not sure how I feel about students bringing a pdf to class instead of a book. It would be easier to carry around, of course, but then they are on their computers during class, with a world of distractions beeping in their face. In many ways, I prefer to have a student come with a book.

I wanted to like this textbook but ended up wondering if I would use it. This book is sort of like a set of Dover Thrift editions stitched together with introductions, study questions, and bibliographies added. But no notes or glosses. If you are comfortable teaching from the text without much support apparatus, you might be comfortable using this edition.

Reviewed by John Lynch, Adjunct Professor Communications/English, Worcester State University on 5/26/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

I just got through a semester using the Broadview Anthology of British Literature Concise, Volume B, Second Edition. This book was expensive for students. Robinson's text has the same material I used during the semester.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The commentary and discussion questions are valid and useful for first or second year students.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

For anyone who is teaching British Lit. II, the list will and should remain quite steady, at least up to postmodernism. This anthology has all the must reads.

Clarity rating: 1

The main problem with the text is it does not have any embedded line notes, footnotes, or translations. Most students need a guide for this "new" language. Armed with side and foot notes, the student is much more easily involved in rendering the meaning. I would have trouble teaching this text to the freshman novice who needs these embedded side and foot notes to understand the text on his/her own.

Consistency rating: 5

The text accurately gives historical context and recommended readings. Again see the note above on lack of defining difficult terms for students.

Modularity rating: 5

It is easily compacted into nicely individualized headings.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The time progression of British Literature is clearly indexed.

Interface rating: 5

The look and navigational flow of the text is highly friendly and the print is well fonted for projectors and online poges.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Did not see any grammatical or photographic errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

In comparing my usual textbook for this class, again I see nothing missing here of relevance. The historical commentary and place setting of the readings are well done.

Comments

The main thing that would stop me from using this text, unless it is for graduate students perhaps, is the lack of side and foot notes in the text. Without a guide next to the language, most beginning students would be lost.

Reviewed by Scott Banville, Associate Professor, Nicholls State University on 4/29/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

For an anthology of British Literature it isn't very comprehensive. Even within the canonical authors the selections are slim and at times a bit bewildering. None of the poetry or prose sections have any footnotes that would help student readers with language, allusions, or historical context. More troubling is that the footnotes don't exist and thus can't help readers understand the various revisions or versions of the poems on offer--so we can't understand the why of the selections.

While it is true that you can't have students read everything, I'd feel constrained by some of the choices. For example, yes Keats's "One First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is often read in high schools, omitting it here makes it difficult to ask students to re-think the poem based on a deeper understanding of Romanticism.

While the text does bring in some woman Romanticist--Smith, Shelley, Hemans, Barbauld, it also ignores Romantic essayists and even Southey who while now a minor figure was important in the era. The selection for Lord Byron is a bit mystifying. Some of the selections from Dorothy Wordsworth's journal are puzzling given the William Wordsworth poems. For example, "I wandered lonely as a cloud..." but then the selection from Dorothy's journal from which the poem grows is not there.

While Christina Rossetti is known for "Goblin Market" her other poems such as "In an Artist's Studio" are important to understanding the relationships among art, literature, and gender. Its omission is troubling.

I'm not sure if T.S. Eliot's "The Hollowmen" is just dated or why it isn't included here. Puzzling omission.

The complete lack of WWI poetry is puzzling.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

I'm concerned about the lack of apparatus. None of the poetry or prose sections have any footnotes that would help student readers with language, allusions, or historical context. More troubling is that the footnotes don't exist and thus can't help readers understand the various revisions or versions of the poems on offer. Such omissions combined with the lack of full or accurate titles is troubling. For example, "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" omits the full title "Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798" with no acknowledgement of that fact. Yes, we commonly refer to the poem as "Tintern Abbey" but omitting the date part of the title doesn't allow instructors or students to think about the significance of the date--July 13th within the larger Romantic discourse and what it is that the poem may be doing and/or saying. This is just one example of how the contents may give students an inaccurate view of the poems and the periods.

In terms of accuracy, the lack of footnotes (many of them included by the poet and thus are part of the poem) for "The Waste Land" is a bit puzzling. Yes, the original printing of the poem didn't include the footnotes, but just about any authoritative edition of the poem includes them. I'm not sure how one teaches Eliot's poetics--the poetics of Modernism with out them. Even if you don't read them per se, their existence is part of the poem.

I'm a bit bothered by the lack of line numbers for the poetry. I'm not sure how this would work in class or how I would talk with students about proper in text citation of poetry without line numbers.

Moreover, there is no apparatus to help students understand the dates of publication--it is as if the poems, essays, letters, stories, etc. exist in historical vacuum. Yes, we have the author notes, etc. but it is useful to know that poem was perhaps written, published, revised, etc. over a period of time or after a long period of contemplation of the historical or cultural event. And since there is no acknowledgement of the various versions of a text, the question of accuracy--of which copy text is being used and why is hard judge.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Well for the periods, many of the selections are fine despite the glaring omissions and the modern selections are unlikely to go out of date.

Clarity rating: 5

The period introductions and author notes are for the most part clear and accessible.

Consistency rating: 4

The text uses accepted terms--Romantic Era, Victorian, etc.

Modularity rating: 3

The PDF works a bit against modularity. That being said the use of periods is conventional and thus there is built in modularity from that organization.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The chronological order is fine and what most instructors and students expect from a literature anthology.

Interface rating: 3

PDF are cumbersome. It's hard to find a text and there's a lot of scrolling. The thumbnails are useful, but a linked TOC would have been nice. I'm not sure how easy it would be to compare two texts in class--say looking at W. Wordsworth poem and a D. Wordsworth journal entry. Or a Keats letter and a Keats poem.

The page headings are vague--just the book title and big section title--British Literature II ....... Romantic Era for example. It would be nice to have the author name and/or the text title to help instructors and students navigate to the text.

The lack of line numbers for poetry is very troubling.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I didn't find any glaring errors, etc.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

While the text does offer up some women writers, especially for the Romantic and Victorian eras, it like many anthologies ignores texts by colonized people. I understand that due to copyright concerns some writers such as Derek Walcott may not be feasible to include, but for the 19th and early 20th centuries the lack of diversity is a bit troubling. Much the same critique can be made of the commercially available anthologies as well.

Comments

I'm not sure I'd use this text as there are too many omissions. I'd just go to the trouble of linking to the texts I'd want students to use. If I were to use an anthology, this isn't it.

Reviewed by Kathleen Chamberlain, Professor, Department of English, Emory and Henry College on 3/26/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The text covers canonical main authors of the periods, but the scope of the volume means that even canonical coverage is necessarily sketchy. The "Twentieth Century and Beyond" is particularly thin, especially after the Modern period, when the selection seems random. Coverage includes male and female authors, primarily white. The text offers poems, a novella, excerpts of novels, two plays, and a scattering of relevant non-fiction. There is no index or glossary.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

I give this section a 3.5. I found no obviously inaccurate statements. The introductory sections are very brief, however, which necessarily leads them to oversimplify complex material and thus risk giving students a skewed view of literary periods and movements. Faculty would have a lot of supplementary work to do. I dedicate much of my class to battling students' tendency to render complex issues in falsifying, simplistic terms. I would hesitate to use a book that shows a similar tendency. Often, the author does an excellent job of concisely summing up a complicated concept. At other times, though, as with the Romantic period, the discussion is too schematic and oppositional. Yes, Wordsworth and other Romantic poets reacted against eighteenth-century conventions, but they weren't hostile to reason and logic in principle, which is what this intro implies. Then, too, in today's polarized political climate, I'm leery of defining Romanticism as essentially the same thing as "liberalism." I know that many of my students would interpret this word only in a narrow, contemporary US political sense, especially when the book explicitly contrasts the Romantic Period to the "conservative" eighteenth century (yet without contextualizing the terms). Terminology overall can be vague and undefined, leading to possible misunderstanding. For instance, this passage occurs in the intro to "Twentieth Century and Beyond": "Victorian realism gave way to obviously artificial structures. To the modernists, the visible, space, and time are not reality; rather, they are modes through which we apprehend reality." Such a comment won't help students understand that "realism" isn't "reality," either; it is also a "mode through which we apprehend reality." Both the Victorian and Modern sections could lead students to think that "realism" is a straightforward and uncomplicated reflection of the real world. Still, given the brevity of the intros, the author manages to cover a lot of important material.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

In introductions, the author is careful to consider issues of gender, race, and class, so the content feels contemporary. The "Recommended Readings" lists, however, are quite dated. No doubt some thirty- to sixty-year-old works of lit crit can still be useful and interesting, but they are definitely of their time.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is readable and should be accessible to students.

Consistency rating: 4

I don't see a principle of selection for the "Recommended Reading" lists. Some of the critical texts are well-known (if dated) classics in the field; other choices seem more random. We get biographies of a few authors but not all.
(Why Blake and Wilde and Joyce but no one else?) Otherwise, I found no problems with consistency.

Modularity rating: 5

Students will have no trouble following.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The organization is chronological, which is standard and fine as far as it goes. But I would like to see some topical or thematic listings, too.

Interface rating: 4

The text and illustrations function well; lay-out is consistent. I do wish that the Table of Contents were linked to the actual sections, so that readers could cut to relevant passages instead of having to scroll endlessly through the entire text.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

I didn't notice any grammar errors. A few sentences can be hard to follow, like this one: "To the modernists,
the visible, space, and time are not reality." "Visible" initially reads as an adjective, not as an obvious noun like "space and time." I had to puzzle over this phrasing for a minute. And there are a few typos -- random hyphens; Jerome McGann's book "The Romantic Ideology" is spelled "Idealogy," etc. But on the whole, the grammar is fine.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Nothing insensitive leaped out at me. The author does address issues of class, race, and gender. I would wish for more diversity in the 20th-21st century selections, though.

Comments

If your main goal is to save students money, this text provides a solid selection of canonical British literature and offers very basic introductions as starting-points that a faculty member could supplement, contextualize, and complicate. None of the works is annotated, however -- no definitions, no historical or cultural explanations. Students need this sort of apparatus, or at least, mine do. So they'll save money, but they're likely to lose some understanding.

Reviewed by Lexey Bartlett, Associate Professor, Fort Hays State University on 11/30/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

Comprehensiveness is the main difficulty with this text, partly because of copyright restrictions, but also because of the scope of this kind of undertaking. As I noted in another section of this review, "The structure of the sections is consistent throughout, but the quantity of material is unevenly distributed across the sections. Even though the later material under copyright couldn't be directly included, the book could still have author biographies and suggested texts for writers that should be included or considered for inclusion in an anthology of this kind. " The other problem is that the book is completely lacking in the scholarly apparatus that I know my students need to understand texts as they read (glosses on archaic or dialect words in footnotes or alongside the text, as well as footnotes to explain allusions or contextual information). The introductory sections on the literary-historical time periods and historical context are also extremely basic. I would have to supplement it significantly for students to have the full knowledge they needed to understand the texts and the issues in them. As I noted elsewhere in the review, the book also doesn't contain any sections focused on important themes or topics in the time period, and those are often the sections my students find most interesting, especially because they also contain texts of different non-fiction genres, which are mostly lacking in this collection.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The broad overviews of literary-historical time periods and historical context are fine as far as they go, although they are not very detailed.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

The recommendations for further reading are significantly out of date. These are not lengthy lists, and with a single exception (Said's Orientalism from 1993), all of the recommended texts were published between the 1950s and 1980s. I think even if students wanted to read them, they might have trouble finding extant copies of some of them, and surely something worth reading has been published in the past 28 years. In addition, the section of the text covering the twentieth century and beyond is very limited in scope. I will grant the issue that most of the literature from this time period is still under copyright and that the textbook must link to work that is available elsewhere rather than reproducing it as can be done with work in the public domain. However, the list of authors from this time period is still pretty canonical and is very limited. Even a list of suggested literature would be useful to students wanting more material.

Clarity rating: 5

The introductions and author biographies would be easily understandable by high school students and beyond.

Consistency rating: 3

The structure of the sections is consistent throughout, but the quantity of material is unevenly distributed across the sections. Even though the later material under copyright couldn't be directly included, the book could still have author biographies and suggested texts for writers that should be included or considered for inclusion in an anthology of this kind.

Modularity rating: 5

The sections would be easy for students to identify and navigate.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

The book is organized chronologically as are most anthologies for literature survey courses. However, many anthologies include sections that are also arranged thematically or address significant issues in each time period, which is very useful for helping students to consider larger issues and a wider genre of texts related to specific topics, such as imperialism or women's rights. This text has none of those sections, not even an index of related topics, so it's hard to give too much credit for chronological organization.

Interface rating: 4

It's a PDF, so it is relatively easy to navigate, although internal links from the table of contents would be really helpful in an 1100+ page PDF file.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

The grammar seems fine generally, although I noted a number of words that included hyphens where there should not be hyphens (for example, in a compound modifier in which the first word is an adverb ending in -ly, and the word "plotless" is spelled "plot-less"). I would be hesitant to introduce a text with these errors to my students.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I didn't see any offensive cultural references in the authored material. Some literary texts from this time period contain some comments or words that are offensive, but, of course, we discuss them in that context in literature courses.

Comments

I didn't feel that the discussion questions were helpful as part of the book's apparatus. While they indicate themes or ideas that the reader should consider, they are too directive. Since many of us try to teach our students to develop their own inquiry skills, having such questions in the books seems limiting and distracting.