The Encyclopedia of Commonwealth Literature (3 Vol. set) is a scholarly work that provides a comprehensive survey of the literatures of nations within the Commonwealth. The encyclopedia typically covers key elements like major authors, their works, and general traits, with some covering literatures from countries like Australia, India, Canada, and South Africa. It serves as a significant resource for understanding the literature of this multicultural grouping, though it may focus on major nations due to the large number of member states. The encyclopedia includes chapters on the literatures of various Commonwealth nations, biographies of prominent author, and analyses of their works. It is designed to be a comprehensive survey, though due to the sheer number of Commonwealth nations, they may focus on the major ones for which sufficient printed material is available. Vol. 1 INTRODUCTION TO COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE In the 1950s the term Commonwealth was used as a descriptive, non-political term to identify literature in English from countries and colonies that had had a historical connection with Great Britain. In 1957, a conference on Commonwealth Literature was convened at Leeds, and in the same year, a new section, Section XII, for consideration of literatures in the 'commonwealth' was established. A survey of the literatures of these areas, followed in 1961, entitled "The Commonwealth Pen: An Introduction to the Literature of the British Commonwealth". The journal of Commonwealth Literature was established in 1965 by Oxford University Press. Vol. 2 A CRITICAL SURVEY OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE In recent times, Commonwealth Literature is the favourite hunting ground of students, scholars, and teachers. It is mainly because of the wide variety it holds as far as people, culture, and story are concerned; A Critical Survey of Commonwealth Literature is written to present before readers such wide variety. It is also a noticeable fact that students, who are very much passionate about literature face grave problem regarding Commonwealth Literature or Contemporary Literature; this book is the simple solution for all their problems. Vol. 3 ASPECTS OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE What emerges in these literary journeys is the intense interest in English as a medium for creative writing, giving a latent linguistic unity to a great diversity of cultures from which the writers emerged, touched by English texts. The literature of England has been in the making for almost 600 years: Commonwealth Literature, as a body of works in a Discipline, is barely sixty years old. The first conference on Commonwealth Literature was held in the School of English, University of Leeds, in September 1964.
William Steele research interests include Commonwealth literature and publishing history, cultural history, the history of the book, magazines and periodical studies, middlebrow cultures, and studies in modernity. Professor Steele was Director of the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Queensland from 2001 to 2006, then Professor of Australian Literature and Cultural History in the School of Communication and Arts. He is the author of Australian Books and Authors in the American Marketplace, 1840s-1940s (2018) with Roger Osborne, Almost Always Modern: Australian Print Cultures and Modernity (2013), Dispossession, Dreams and Diversity: Issues in Australian Studies (2006) and A Career in Writing: Judah Waten and the Cultural Politics of a Literary Career (1997), winner of the Walter McRae Russell Award for literary scholarship. His edited books include the co-edited Fields, Capitals, Habitus: Australian Culture, Inequalities and Social Divisions (2020); Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing (2007) with Anne Galligan; The Ideas Market: An Alternative Take on Australia's Intellectual Life (2004); Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, with Tony Bennett (2001); and Outside the Book: Contemporary Essays on Literary Periodicals (1991). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Series Editor, Anthem Studies in Book History, Publishing and Print Culture, Anthem UK. Professor Steele has extensive experience in teaching and developing programs in Commonwealth Studies internationally. He was President of the International Australian Studies Association from 1997 to 2001; Manager of the Australian Studies in China program of the Australia-China Council (2002-16); a board member of the Australia-Japan Foundation (1998-2004); and Visiting Professor in Australian Studies at Tokyo University (2007-08 & 2016-17). He is a Board Member of the Foundation for Australian Studies in Japan and India.
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