The Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature provides an invaluable guide to this sequence of events, and to the current state of the field. The chronology tracks the evolution of fantasy from the origins of literature to the 21st century. The introduction explains the nature of the impulses creating and shaping fantasy literature, the problems of its definition and the reasons for its changing historical fortunes. The dictionary includes entries on more than 700 authors, ranging across the entire historical spectrum, while more than 200 other entries describe the fantasy sub genres, key images in fantasy literature, technical terms used in fantasy criticism and the intimately convoluted relationship between literary fantasies, scholarly fantasies, and lifestyle fantasies. The extensive bibliography ranges from general textbooks and specialized accounts of the history and scholarship of fantasy literature, through bibliographies and account of the fantasy literature of different nations, to individual author studies and useful websites.