The New Guide to Modern World Literature

by Martin Seymour-Smith

Discusses, country-by-country the best modern novelists, playwrights, poets and writers, looks at their most important works, and assesses their place in literature

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction

1396 pages, hardcover

First published July 1, 1985

Reviews

[Alexandre Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic encyclopaedia full of abrupt and somewhat courageous evaluations and devaluations. Martin Seymour-Smith seems to have read everything, and isn't shy about giving his opinion: the book contains attacks on Ted Hughes and Tom Stoppard, for instance, and though some of the attacks and praises seem unfair to me, it's a very entertaining and informative read.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book in the reference section of the McLean Virginia Library. When we moved to Dhahran, I continued reading a used copy that I had purchased. It took me 2 years to read this book twice while I studied in detail mostly the new authors that Martin Seymore-Smith introduced to me from all over the world.

In fact, based on his reviews and reviews of reviews country by country I formulated my own system to critique any book that I might want to read in the future. Before this book, I had gone from book to book in a sort of fog, like most of us do without the benefit of professional, objective, time-tested critiques. Since the New Guide to Modern World Literature, I have read other similar high-quality critical works and incorporated information on new authors into my system that I have now created. This book I would say has been one of the most important books that I have ever read. I rarely sit down with an inferior work by authors who are popularly touted as great but who do not pass the test of time and analysis by the literati and intellectuals who review trends and style.

[Mark Vallianatos · Rating 4 out of 5]

opinionated and at times cranky guide to fiction, poetry, and drama from world literature of the first three quarters of the 20th century. I discovered some good books in this encyclopedia, and the introduction, again opionated, lays out some possibly useful categories- swinish middlebrow, gnostic, madness etc.

[Robert Nagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing encylopedia of 20th century authors reveals the breadth of Seymour-Smith's reading. Broken down by nationality, full of entertaining dismissals and praise. It's one of those books very hard to put down.