From the editors of Salon.com comes a provocative and compulsively readable guide to contemporary fiction. This all-original, A-to-Z reference profiles 225 of the most fascinating writers of our time. Line drawings throughout.

Ten new volumes are now offered in the completely revised Pelican ShakespeareSeries.

In this seminal biography of the enigmatic novelist and poet Thomas Hardy ("Tess of the d'Urbervilles"), Whitbread Award winner Tomalin skillfully identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a rich and complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.