Sources For General Book Reviews - Finding Book Reviews Online

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Finding Book Reviews Online

• Introduction
• Sources for General Book Reviews

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Sources for General Book Reviews

Before you start your search you should know the title and author of the book being reviewed. The date of publication will sometimes also be required. Some databases offer a search option to limit search results to book reviews. Where not present, adding a keyword search that includes the phrase "book review" should help. Reviews of popular books are typically published close to their publication dates; find them via book-related websites and indexes that cover general interest periodicals. Reviews of scholarly books may take months to appear in scholarly journals. For more databases that cover scholarly journals, visit the Library of Congress E-Resources Online Catalog.

• Free Web Resources
• Book Review Databases
• Selected General Databases
• Historical Book Review Databases

Free contemporary book reviews are widely available on the web. The sources listed below are some of the most common places to find them.

• Amazon.com External Amazon.com offers book reviews of many of the book titles it sells. Some reviews are by professionals; many are by readers. Find a book and scroll down its entry to read the reviews, where present. For balance, try a variety of positive and negative reviews.
• Barnes & Noble External Barnes and Noble includes professional book reviews with the descriptions of many of the books it sells.
• Complete Review External The Complete Review contains a selected listing of old and new book titles with reviews and links to more reviews.
• GoodReads Reviews External GoodReads offers millions of book reviews contributed by its community members which include librarians, journalists, and many other readers. An account is not required to read reviews: scroll down to the search box.
• JSTOR and ARTSTOR Open & Free External JSTOR and ARTSTOR Open and Free Content is a subset of the subscription database available in many libraries. Read about JSTOR under the Book Review Databases tab in this guide.
• Kirkus Reviews External Kirkus Reviews includes reviews new and forthcoming fiction, non-fiction and Young Adult (YA) books. Kirkus also has a print magazine available by subscription.
• Library Journal Reviews+ External Library Journal reviews books on a wide array of popular and scholarly topics expected to interest a broad spectrum of libraries. Reviews from the most recent 24 months are free online.
• LibraryThing Reviews External LibraryThing Reviews are written by members of the LibraryThing community of readers and book collectors. Reviews are grouped in various ways, including by genre or may be searched by author or title. An account is not required to read reviews
• New York Times Book Review (free selections) External A free collection of book reviews published in The New York Times since 1981. A more extensive paid subscription database is also available.
• School Library Journal Reviews+ External Features reviews from School Library Journal from the most recent twenty-four months. Browse by genre, grade level, award winners and other criteria.

Subscription databases are great sources for current and recent book reviews. Many also include historical coverage.

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

• Book Review Digest Plus External This link opens in a new window
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  Indexes reviews of English-language fiction and nonfiction books for adults and children from periodicals published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, and provides review excerpts and over 100,000 full text reviews. Every book in Book Review Digest Plus appears with all of its reviews together. Entries encompass some 1,300,000 reviews covering over 550,000 books and grows with daily updates. For book reviews prior to 1983, see Book Review Digest Retrospective, 1905-1982. Also see Book Review Index Plus for citations to book reviews from 1965 to the present. The simultaneous user limit for this resource may result in temporary delays.
• Book Review Index Plus External This link opens in a new window
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  A comprehensive online guide to book reviews that includes more than five million review citations from thousands of publications, with linking to more than 630,000 full-text reviews. The database provides quick access to reviews of books, periodicals, books on tape and electronic media representing a wide range of popular, academic and professional interests. For additional book reviews, see Book Review Digest Plus and Book Review Digest Retrospective, 1905-1982.
• Choice Reviews External This link opens in a new window
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  Stay up-to-date on the latest academic titles, gain access to exclusive web content, and search through a comprehensive archive of more than 200,000 reviews representing a quarter-century of scholarship. This digital database includes more than 500 new reviews each month, updated daily. Create an individual account to create lists, save searches, receive customizable user alerts, and share titles with colleagues.
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews External This link opens in a new window
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  IBR contains over 990,000 entries about book reviews from over 6 thousand academic journals mainly in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The database is international and interdisciplinary containing German and English subject classifications. IBR is Updated monthly. Part of GBV online, the web portal of the GBV Common Library Network of the German States Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thringen and the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage.
• Gale Literature Criticism External This link opens in a new window
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  Gale takes literature, history and culture to the next level with its most extensive curated compilation of literary commentary available: Literature Criticism Online. The 10 individual, award-winning Gale series that comprise Literature Criticism Online represent a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras and genres. Imagine centuries of analysis the scholarly and popular commentary from broadsheets, pamphlets, encyclopedias, books and periodicals delivered in an easy format that matches the exact look and feel of the print originals. Gale literary references reach back 20 to 30 years and taken together as print, they could easily fill 230 feet of shelf space! Now, hundreds of volumes are digitized and ready to read 24/7 online. The net result is tens of thousands of hard-to-find essays at your fingertips. It's all designed to raise the level of research while providing around-the-clock remote access that today's researchers demand. With its complete and cross-referenced essay content, researchers will need to look no further. Only Literature Criticism Online brings together the most acclaimed literary series from Gale:
  • Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vols 1-415
  • Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vols 1-346
  • Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vols1-340
  • Shakespearean Criticism, Vols 1-177
  • Literature Criticism from 14001800, Vols 1-265
  • Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Vols 1-188
  • Poetry Criticism, Vols 1-192
  • Short Story Criticism, Vols 1-244
  • Drama Criticism, Vols 1-56
  • Children's Literature Review, Vols 1-216
• Gale Literature Resource Center External This link opens in a new window
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  LRC provides full text access to bibliographical and biographical information, literary criticism, and contextual information covering more than 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers. Search by author, title, genre, literary movement or theme from major reference sources, scholarly journals, commissioned essays and interviews. The simultaneous user limit for this resource may result in temporary delays.
• MLA International Bibliography External This link opens in a new window
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  MLA International Bibliography offers a detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations on literature, language, linguistics, and folklore, including film studies. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to the 1920s and contains over 1.8 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series and 1,000 book publishers. The indexed materials coverage is international, and includes almost 60 titles from J-STORs language and literature collection as well as links to full text. The simultaneous user limit for this resource may result in temporary delays.

These more general subscription databases cover a wide array of periodicals which include book reviews. Using the phrase "book review" in your search can be effective if no check-box option for book reviews is available in the database's search function.

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

• Alternative Press Index External This link opens in a new window
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  Indexes nearly 300 alternative, radical, and left periodicals, newspapers, and magazines covering cultural, economic, political & social change.
• American Periodicals External This link opens in a new window
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  American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladie's Home Journal regional and niche publications and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's. APS Online chronicles the development of America across 150 years. The journals in this collection cover three broad periods: 89 journals published between 1740 and 1800 offer insights into America's transition from colonial times to independence. The journals support research for a range of academic fields. Titles include Massachusetts Magazine, which published America's first short stories, and Thomas Paine's Pennsylvania Magazine, which reported on inventions. One of the first mass printings of the Declaration of Independence, a letter by George Washington on the crucial Battle of Trenton, and the thoughts of Benjamin Franklin are among the highlights of content from this period. The first 60 years of the 19th century became the golden age of American periodicals, with general interest magazines, children's publications, and more than 20 journals for women. Many of the publications reflect on the growing debate over slavery, including the serialization of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in National Era that preceded the novel. Also available are hard-to-find materials, such as Edgar Allan Poe's contributions to the Southern Literary Messenger, as well as the first appearances of Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories in New England Magazine, and Margaret Fuller's contributions to the Dial. 118 periodicals published during the Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction (1865-1877) eras reflect the nation in turmoil and growth, and titles from the 1880s through 1900 capture the settling of the West and the emergence of modern Amer
• JSTOR External This link opens in a new window
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  JSTOR is a highly selective digital library of academic content in many disciplines. The Library of Congress's subscriptions to JSTOR provide access to thousands of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR works with a diverse group of nearly 1,200 publishers from more than 57 countries to preserve and make their content digitally available. Also provided is access to JSTOR Daily, which offers a fresh way for people to understand and contextualize their world. JSTOR Daily writers provide insight, commentary, and analysis of ideas, research, and current events, tapping into the rich scholarship on JSTOR. In addition to weekly feature articles, the magazine publishes daily blog posts that provide the backstory to complex issues of the day in a variety of subject areas, interviews with and profiles of scholars and their work, and much more.
• OmniFile Full Text Mega Edition External This link opens in a new window
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  Contains the full text of articles from over 1,750 publications and article abstracts and indexing from over 3,500 publications covering virtually any subject. Indexing (1982- ), Abstracting (1984- ), and select Full Text (1994- ). The database contains everything (all the indexing, abstracting, and full text) that is contained in these 11 Wilson databases: Applied Science & Technology Full Text Art Full Text Biological & Agricultural Index Plus Education Full Text General Science Full Text Humanities Full Text Index to Legal Periodicals Full Text Library Literature & Information Science Full Text Readers' Guide Full Text Social Sciences Full Text Business Full Text. The simultaneous user limit for this resource may result in temporary delays.
• Readers' Guide Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson) External This link opens in a new window
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  Readers' Guide Full Text Mega is a database containing comprehensive indexing and abstracting of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and Canada, plus the full text of selected periodicals. The abstracts average 125 words in length. Full-text coverage begins in January 1994 for most titles. It includes these subjects: Aeronautics, African-Americans, Aging, Astronomy, Automobiles, Biography, Business, Canada, Children, Computers, Consumer Education, Current Events, Education, Environment, Fashion, Film, Fine Arts, Food, Foreign Affairs, Health, History, Hobbies, Home, Journalism, Leisure Activities, Medicine, Music, News, Nutrition, Photography, Politics, Religion, Science, Sports, and Television.
• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature External This link opens in a new window
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  ABELL contains 860,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world. Subject areas covered by ABELL include: English language including syntax, phonology, lexicology, semantics, stylistics and dialectology English literature including poetry, prose, fiction, films, biography, travel writing, literary theory and studies of individual authors Bibliography including manuscript studies, textual studies and the history of publishing Traditional culture of the English-speaking world including custom, belief, narrative, song, dance and material culture. ABELL is compiled under the auspices of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) by an international team of editors, contributors and academic advisors. Covers 1920 to present.
• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature External This link opens in a new window
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  ABELL contains 860,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world. Subject areas covered by ABELL include: English language including syntax, phonology, lexicology, semantics, stylistics and dialectology English literature including poetry, prose, fiction, films, biography, travel writing, literary theory and studies of individual authors Bibliography including manuscript studies, textual studies and the history of publishing Traditional culture of the English-speaking world including custom, belief, narrative, song, dance and material culture. ABELL is compiled under the auspices of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) by an international team of editors, contributors and academic advisors.

Some researchers seek reviews that are decades or even centuries old, for example, to see how a book written in the 19th Century was reviewed when it was first released. This listing includes general and book review resources. For the general sources, be sure to Include the phrase "book review" in your search if no check-box option for book reviews is available.

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

• African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 External This link opens in a new window
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  African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations' bulletins, annual reports and other genres. These diverse periodicalswhich have shaped, and in turn been shaped by, African American culturewill enable new discoveries on lives of African Americans as individuals, as an ethnic group and as Americans. Like African American Newspapers, 1827-1998, this new collection is based upon James P. Danky's monumental African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography. Drawn from matchless holdings of the Wisconsin Historical Society, African American Periodicals ranges over more than 150 years of American life, from slavery during the Antebellum Period to the struggles and triumphs of the modern era. Beyond offering opinions on issues and events of the day, the rare titles in African American Periodicals capture the voices of African American social, political, religious, literary and business history. The publications brought together heremany short-lived and not collected by most librariesbrim with surprises and untold stories.This collection is currently in the development phase and not all titles are included at this time. Collection is expected to be complete Spring 2012. Click here for a: Complete titles and coverage list.
• America's Historical Newspapers External This link opens in a new window
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  America's Historical Newspapers features full text cover-to-cover reproductions of historic newspapers published in 50 states and the District of Columbia. The coverage provides insight into the early years of the United States: the daily life of hundreds of diverse American communities; the later westward expansion and the rise of the penny press with its increasing emphasis on society, industry, and scientific advances; the Civil War era, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive era, and beyond. Please note that the full text may not be available for all issues of a particular newspaper (the database continues to grow). Collections include:
  • African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 (Series 1 and Series 2)
  • American Business: Agricultural Newspapers
  • American Business: Mercantile Newspapers
  • American Gazettes: Newspapers of Record
  • American Politics: Campaign Newspapers
  • American Religion: Denominational Newspapers
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876: From Colonies to Nation
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 2, 1758-1900: The New Republic
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 3, 1783-1922: From Farm to City
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 4, 1756-1922: The Rise of Industry
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 5, 1777-1922: An Emerging World Power
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 6, 1741-1922: Compromise and Disunion
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 7: 1773-1922: Reform and Retrenchment
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 8, 1844-1922: A Nation in Transition
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 9, 1832-1922: Protest and Prosperity
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 10, 1730-1900: Regional Pioneers
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 11, 1803-1899: From Agrarian Republic to World Power
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 12, 1821-1900: The Specialized Press
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 13, 1803-1916: The American West
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 14, 1807-1880: The Expansion of Urban America
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 15, 1822-1879: Immigrant Communities
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 16, 1800-1877: Industry and the Environment
  • Early American Newspapers Series 17, 1844-1922: American Heartland
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 18, 1825-1879: Racial Awakening in the Northeast

• Book Review Digest (1905-1924) External Book Review Digest indexes reviews of English-language fiction and nonfiction books for adults and children from periodicals published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Volumes from 1905-1924 are now in the public domain. They have been scanned and made freely available online via the HathiTrust Digital Library. Researchers in libraries that provide access to the Book Review Digest Retrospective database will likely prefer the database interface.

• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature External This link opens in a new window
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  ABELL contains 860,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world. Subject areas covered by ABELL include: English language including syntax, phonology, lexicology, semantics, stylistics and dialectology English literature including poetry, prose, fiction, films, biography, travel writing, literary theory and studies of individual authors Bibliography including manuscript studies, textual studies and the history of publishing Traditional culture of the English-speaking world including custom, belief, narrative, song, dance and material culture. ABELL is compiled under the auspices of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) by an international team of editors, contributors and academic advisors. Covers 1920 to present.
• Book Review Digest Retrospective, 1905-1982 External This link opens in a new window
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  Provides excerpts from and citations to reviews of adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction, plus valuable bibliographic information and book summaries. Covers 300,000 books and cites over 1.5 million book reviews found in over 500 popular magazines, newspapers, and academic journals, as well as the library review media (the reviews originate in a group of selected periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and general science published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain). For later book reviews see Book Review Digest Plus and Book Review Index Plus. The simultaneous user limit for this resource may result in temporary delays.
• C19: The Nineteenth Century Index External This link opens in a new window
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  A comprehensive and dynamic source for discovering nineteenth-century books, periodicals, official documents, newspapers and archives.

  C19 Index draws on the strength of established indexes such as the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (NSTC), The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index, Periodicals Index Online and the Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 18111849 to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.7 million books and official publications, 70,000 archival collections and 20.9 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers. C19 Index now provides integrated access to 13 bibliographic indexes, including more than three million records from British Periodicals Collections I and II, together with the expanded online edition of the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (DNCJ).

• Chronicling America This link opens in a new window Chronicling America provides free access to millions of pages of historic American public domain newspapers. More than 3000 titles, published in 48 states and territories and the District of Columbia are available (eventual coverage will be all states and territories, 1690-1963). The headlines, articles and advertisements capture the life and times of the American people, shining new light on historic events as they unfolded. Also provides a link to find information about newspapers published in the United States from 1690. Produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress.
• JSTOR External This link opens in a new window
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  JSTOR is a highly selective digital library of academic content in many disciplines. The Library of Congress's subscriptions to JSTOR provide access to thousands of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR works with a diverse group of nearly 1,200 publishers from more than 57 countries to preserve and make their content digitally available. Also provided is access to JSTOR Daily, which offers a fresh way for people to understand and contextualize their world. JSTOR Daily writers provide insight, commentary, and analysis of ideas, research, and current events, tapping into the rich scholarship on JSTOR. In addition to weekly feature articles, the magazine publishes daily blog posts that provide the backstory to complex issues of the day in a variety of subject areas, interviews with and profiles of scholars and their work, and much more.

• Poole's Index to Periodical Literature External This index to general periodicals in the United States and United Kingdom in six volumes, covers the years 1802 through 1906. Volumes have been scanned and made freely available online via the HathiTrust Digital Library. Researchers in libraries that provide access to the database, C19: The Nineteenth Century Index will likely prefer the database interfaces.

• ProQuest Historical Newspapers & Periodicals External This link opens in a new window
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  ProQuest Historical Newspapers is the definitive newspaper digital archive offering full-text and full-image articles for significant newspapers dating back to the 18th Century. From leading issues and events, like the U.S. Civil War, immigration, westward expansion, industrial developments, race relations, and World War I and II to local and regional politics, society, arts, culture, business, and sports, ProQuest Historical Newspapers reveals the day-to-day news coverage to researchers and historical explorers, providing invaluable insights and information to users from a wide range of subjects. Newspapers include: The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger; The American Israelite; The Arizona Republican, The Atlanta Constitution; Atlanta Daily World; The Baltimore Afro-American; The Baltimore Sun; The Boston Globe; Chicago Defender; Chicago Tribune; The Christian Science Monitor; The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Call and Post; Detroit Free Press; The Guardian and The Observer; Hartford Courant; The Jewish Advocate; The Jewish Exponent; Los Angeles Sentinel; Los Angeles Times; Newsday; New York Amsterdam News; The New York Times; New York Tribune/Herald Tribune; Norfolk Journal and Guide; The Philadelphia Enquirer; Philadelphia Tribune; Pittsburgh Courier; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; The Times of India; The Wall Street Journal; The Washington Post
• Readers' Guide Retrospective External This link opens in a new window
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  Provides access to nearly 100 years of citations from more than 500 leading popular periodicals and magazines. Search the equivalent of 44 printed Readers' Guide cumulations for articles that chronicle the daily lives and the momentous events of America in the 20th century. Subjects covered: Aeronautics, African-Americans, Aging, Archeology, Astronomy, Automobiles, Biographies, Business, Children, Education, Environment, Fashion, Film, Fine Arts, Food, Foreign Affairs, Gardening, Health, History, Hobbies, Home, Journalism, Leisure Activities, Literature, Medicine, Music, News, Nutrition, Photography, Politics, Popular Culture, Radio, Religion, Science, Sports, Technology, Television, Travel.
• Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive External This link opens in a new window
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  The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive contains every page of every copy of the TLS published from 1902 to 2006. Since 1902, the Times Literary Supplement has scrutinized, applauded and dissected the work of leading writers and thinkers. The TLS has continued into the new century as the only literary weekly in fact the only journal to offer comprehensive coverage of the latest and most important publications, in every subject, in several languages as well as reviewing current theatre, cinema, music, and exhibitions. From very early in its history, great writers have been not only the subject of reviews, but the authors of them. In its first few decades, the TLS could count Henry James, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot among its reviewers. Later, E.M. Forster, George Orwell and Anthony Powell wrote for the paper, and the tradition continued with regular contributions from Anthony Burgess in the 1970s, to more recent reviews and essays by Tom Stoppard, Patricia Highsmith and A.S. Byatt.

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• Last Updated: Aug 21, 2025 1:40 PM
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