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Kristin O. Lauer and Margaret P. Murray, Edith Wharton: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography, New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990. 528 pages. $65.
Only those who have worked on annotated bibliographies can fully appreciate the labor involved: the countless hours spent in tracking down sources and verifying references, the difficult decisions that must be made about scope and format, the enormous effort required to ensure that the work of other scholars is presented with objectivity and fairness, and the apparently endless nightmare of proofreading and avoiding error. Kristin Lauer and Margaret Murray therefore deserve special praise for having produced a superb annotated bibliography of Wharton criticism. This volume clearly supersedes all previous attempts to chart the course of Wharton scholarship. It is accurate, thorough, and easy to use. Every serious Wharton scholar will want to own it.
In organizing their entries, which number over 1200, Lauer and Murray have rightly emphasized the needs of users. Their bibliography is sensibly divided according to subject and genre - a much more useful format than the chronological method too often employed by bibliographers. Thus, the critic interested in what has been said about any single one of Wharton's works can immediately find the most révélant citations. Furthermore, the sections on individual books wisely separate reviews, introduc- tions, and critical articles. Scholars with broader or more general interests will also find themselves well served by this book's organization, by...