TCLC is designed to serve as an introduction to authors who died between 1900 and 1999 and to the most significant interpretations of these author’s works. Volumes published from 1978 through 1999 included authors who died between 1900 and 1960. The great poets, novelists, short story writers, playwrights, and philosophers of the period are frequently studied in high school and college literature courses. In organizing and reprinting the vast amount of critical material written on these authors, TCLC helps students develop valuable insight into literary history, promotes a better understanding of the texts, and sparks ideas for papers and assignments. Each entry in TCLCpresents a comprehensive survey on an author’s career or an individual work of literature and provides the user with a multiplicity of interpretations and assessments. Such variety allows students to pursue their own interests; furthermore, it fosters an awareness that literature is dynamic and responsive to many different opinions.

Every fourth volume of TCLC is devoted to literary topics. These topics widen the focus of the series from the individual authors to such broader subjects as literary movements, prominent themes in twentieth-century literature, literary reaction to political and historical events, significant eras in literary history, prominent literary anniversaries, and the literatures of cultures that are often overlooked by English-speaking readers.

TCLC is designed as a companion series to Thomson Gale’s Contemporary Literary Criticism, (CLC) which reprints commentary on authors who died after 1999. Because of the different time periods under consideration, there is no duplication of material between CLC and TCLC.

A TCLC entry consists of the following elements:

mise en abime,” in Bataille: Writing the Sacred. Edited by Carolyn Bailey Gill. Roultedge, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Leslie Anne Boldt-Irons. Reproduced by permission of the publisher and the author.—Carr, Virginia Spencer. From Understanding Carson McCullers. University of South Carolina Press, 1990. Copyright © 1990 by University of South Carolina. Reproduced by permission.—Connor, Peter Tracey. From Georges Bataille and the Mysticism of Sin. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Copyright © 2000 The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.—Cook, Richard M. From Carson McCullers. Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1975. Copyright © 1975 by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. Inc. Reproduced by permission.—de Kessel, Marc. From “A Sovereign’s Anatomy: The Antique in Bataille’s Modernity and Its Impact on His Political Thought,” in Cogito and the Unconscious. Edited by Slavoj Zizek. Duke University Press, 1998. Copyright © 1998, Duke University Press, Durham, NC. Reproduced by permission.—Evans, Oliver. From Carson McCullers: Her Life and Work. Peter Owens, 1965. Copyright © 1965 by Peter Owen. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.—Graver, Lawrence. From Carson McCullers. University of Minnesota Press, 1969. Copyright © 1969 by University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.—Guerlac, Suzanne. From Literary Polemics: Bataille, Sartre, Valery, Breton. Stanford University Press, 1997. Copyright © 1997 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. Reproduced with permission of Stanford University Press, www.sup.org , http://www.sup.org.—Hrabik-Samal, Mary. From “Case Study in the Problem of Czech-English Translation with Special Reference to the Works of Bohumil Hrabal,” in Varieties of Czech: Studies in Czech Sociolinguistics. Edited by Eva Eckert. Rodopi, 1993. Copyright © 1993 Editions Rodopi B. V. Reproduced by permission.—Hussey, Andrew. From The Inner Scar: The Mysticism of Georges Bataille. Rodopi, 2000. Copyright © 2000 Editions Rodopi B. V. Reproduced by permission.—Knowles, A. S., Jr. From “Six Bronze Petals and Two Red: Carson McCullers in the Forties,” in The Forties: Fiction, Poetry, Drama. Edited by Warren French. Everett/Edwards, Inc., 1969. Copyright © 1969 by Warren French. Reproduced by permission of the author.—McDowell, Margaret B. From Carson McCullers. Twayne Publishers, 1980. Copyright © 1980 by G. K. Hall & Co. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Gale Group.—Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. From “A Feminist Reading: McCuller’s Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” in Critical Essays on Carson McCullers. Edited by Beverly Lyon Clark and Melvin J. Friedman. G. K. Hall & Co., 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Beverly Lyon Clark and Melvin J. Friedman. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Gale Group.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS APPEARING IN TCLC, VOLUME 155, WERE RECEIVED FROM THE FOLLOWING SOURCES:

Cover of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. Bantam Books, 1967. Reproduced by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.—McCullers, Carson, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.—Norris, Frank, photograph.—Writer Bohumil Hrabal, photograph. Copyright © Sophie Bassouls/Corbis Sygma. Reproduced by permission.

Thomson Gale Literature Product Advisory Board

The members of the Thomson Gale Literature Product Advisory Board—reference librarians from public and academic library systems—represent a cross-section of our customer base and offer a variety of informed perspectives on both the presentation and content of our literature products. Advisory board members assess and define such quality issues as the relevance, currency, and usefulness of the author coverage, critical content, and literary topics included in our series; evaluate the layout, presentation, and general quality of our printed volumes; provide feedback on the criteria used for selecting authors and topics covered in our series; provide suggestions for potential enhancements to our series; identify any gaps in our coverage of authors or literary topics, recommending authors or topics for inclusion; analyze the appropriateness of our content and presentation for various user audiences, such as high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, librarians, and educators; and offer feedback on any proposed changes/enhancements to our series. We wish to thank the following advisors for their advice throughout the year.