SOURCE: Horovitz, Michael. “Gents at Work.” New Statesman and Society 7, no. 289 (11 February 1994): 37-8.

In the following review, Horovitz offers a scathingly critical assessment of The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English, edited by Hamilton. Horovitz asserts that Hamilton's editorial choices reflect a narrow range of literary taste. Horovitz further states that The Oxford Companion is superficial, careless, and full of factual errors.

These 620 pages [of The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English] provide entries on 1,500 poets who have written in English and its variants since 1900, and on 100 related subjects. The blurb claims, “There is no other reference work of comparable range and depth”, but in fact there are several, notably the transatlantic St James Press' Contemporary Poets and Alan Bold's Longman Dictionary of Poets.

The latter is more compact and concise for straightforward information, and includes a representative quotation from each poet. The depth...