8.8 /10 1 Votes8.8
Cover artist Peter Goodfellow Publication date 3 April 1997 Originally published 3 April 1997 | 4.4/5 Language English Pages 832 pp (first edition) Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Media type Print (hardback and paperback), On-line Similar The Encyclopedia of Scienc, Science Fiction: The Illustrated, Appleseed, Look at the Evidence, Scores: Reviews 1993 ‑ 20 |
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy is a 1997 reference work concerning fantasy fiction, edited by John Clute and John Grant. Other contributors include Mike Ashley, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, David Langford, Sam J. Lundwall, Michael Scott Rohan, Brian Stableford and Lisa Tuttle.
Contents
The book was well-received on publication. During 1998, it received the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award. The industry publication Library Journal described The Encyclopedia of Fantasy as "the first of its kind".
Since November 2012, the full text of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy is available on-line, as a companion to the on-line Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. However, the editors of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction have stated that there are not any plans to update the Encyclopedia of Fantasy, at least for the foreseeable future.
Format and content
The Encyclopedia was published in a format that matches the 1993 second edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. It is slightly smaller in terms of content, containing 1,049 alphabetical pages, over 4,000 entries and approximately one million words, the bulk of which were written by Clute, Grant and Ashley. A later CD-ROM edition contains numerous revisions.
The Encyclopedia uses a similar system of categorization to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, but does not include an index of theme entries. A theme index was later included in the on-line addenda: see "External links" below. One of the major differences is that there are no entries related to publishing.
Neologisms
The Encyclopedia often invented new terms for theme entries, rather than using headings that may have previously appeared in critical literature. Examples include:
Reception
Characterizing the book as "an excellent and highly readable source for fantasy", the industry publication Library Journal described The Encyclopedia of Fantasy as "the first of its kind".