Lawrence and Hardy Annotated Bibliographies

therefore denied to Gibson, because in his Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study Purdy himself claims that "The Sound of Her" is "no longer identifiable" (p. 207). Whatever the explanation for the mystery, the poem is now available and reveals itself as an exchange between a visitor come "To forgive her, and let jars end!" and a speaker who points out that the sound they hear is that of her coffin lid being screwed down. The "her," as Millgate's Biography has revealed, is Emma, the poem a final elegising of her predecessor that so disturbed Florence in Satires of Circumstance and Moments of Vision. It is not a major work but it is certainly a representative one that is not without both literary and biographical interest. Hynes again provides "Explanatory Notes" for each of the individual collections and these include not only peripheral textual matters but also brief, and very selective, contextual information. The notes also contain a composition and publication history for each volume, which complements similar information in the Purdy bibliography. In short, an impressive array of accessible ancillary material is marshalled in support of the basic textual concerns, while the handsome presentation and typography allow the poems themselves to remain uncluttered by the weight of scholarship that surrounds them. It is difficult to imagine how Hardy studies could have been better served by either editor or press. Keith Wilson University of Ottawa 3. LAWRENCE AND HARDY ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES D. H. Lawrence: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him: Vol. I (19091960 ) and Vol. II (1961-1975), comp, and ed. James C. Cowan (DeKaIb, IL: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1982; 1985. $35.50 $45.00 Thomas Hardy: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him, Vol. II: 1970-1978 and Supplement for 1871-1969, comps. and eds. W. Eugene Davis and and Helmut E. Gerber (DeKaIb, IL: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1983). $35.00 It is not an exaggeration to say that, under the General Editorship of Helmut E. Gerber and now W. Eugene Davis, the massive Annotated Secondary Bibliography Series on English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 has and will continue to contribute to establishing the canonical position of the period as a discrete field of inquiry. The most important bibliographies in the series—the ones which will be useful to more than a handful of scholars and graduate studentsare those on the major figures, such as the ones on Shaw and Conrad and those under review on Lawrence and Hardy. Of course, the very publication of entire bibliographies devoted to secondary figures such as Galsworthy, Maugham, Wells, and Gissing implicitly argue for their importance to future generations of readers and scholars. Even those who doubt whether these secondary figures are of sufficient importance to deserve such attention will be grateful for having this material available. Yet it is questionable whether these bibliographies can save Galsworthy and Maugham from consignment to the margins of literary study at a time when even major authors are competing in literature departments 435 for curricula attention with feminist and ethnic studies as well as with Freud, Nietzsche, Marx, and Derrida. The volumes under review reflect diligent and painstaking research on the part of a host of contributors. Under the able editorship of James C. Cowan, who has written brief but excellent introductions to both volumes, the Lawrence bibliography gives the major critical books their proportionate due and summarizes their arguments with reasonable accuracy. And there is some awareness of changes in the critical winds as exemplified by the entry on Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (Vol. II: #3563), an entry which, although it should have done more justice to Millett's argument and tone, does speak to her chapter on Lawrence as the seminal feminist study on his work. On the whole the annotations are useful if not always critically sophisticated. Although the Lawrence volumes make no mention or the recently discovered Mr. Noon, they provide an informed and reliable guide through critical and scholarly material; yet, in the interests of inclusiveness, the wheat is not separated from the chaff and material of little significance is given too much attention. Thus in my mind, even if it meant that minor material were...