ENG 202: Writing and Research in English

One thing students of a particular author’s works often want to know is how the writer’s works were received by the public and by critics when they were first published and how they have been regarded since that time. It’s interesting to note, for example, that what many regard as an American classic, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, received some mixed and unenthusiastic reviews when it first appeared. On the other hand, the public couldn’t wait for the latest installment of a Dickens novel like The Old Curiosity Shop to appear. (Dickens’ novels were usually published in serial form.) Reference works such as the Dictionary of Literary Biography or Nineteenth- or Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism will often provide an overview of a work’s publication history and reception. Other studies, such as those in the Critical Heritage series, will give a longer, more detailed account of how the regard for an author and the author’s works changed over the decades or centuries. Finally, book reviews in newspapers, magazines and journals offer invaluable perspectives not only on reception but on the cultural milieu in which a work first appeared.