Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)
Book review - Péter Egri: Vadon, Lehel. Az amerikai irodalom és irodalomtudomány bibliográfiája a magyar időszaki kiadványokban 1990-ig [A Bibliography of American Literature and Literary Scholarship in Hungarian Periodicals till 1900]
(Bratislava) and Kassa (Kosice), but also in U.S. libraries: Grand Canyon University, Arizona State University, Florida State University, as well as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. All in all, Mr. Vadon's work —a single-handed achievement — offers more than it promises: in supplying the dates of the respective authors' birth and death, for instance, the volume assumes the features of an American literary encyclopedia; when explaining initials and variants of personal names and supplying pen names, it moves in the direction of a literary lexicon; by enumerating English and Hungarian textbooks (40-46) use to check data, a large amount of American Studies book material is specified and, as a result, the user of the work gets a glimpse of American cultural history. In providing all this additional information, the volume also offers extra dimensions beyond the 1990 time limit and it almost extends to the end of the millennium. The bibliography's latest data are from 1997, the year of its publications. It is hoped that, by reaching beyond the volume's assigned time frame, Lehel Vadon was actually gearing up for a couple of new undertakings: the extension of the periodical bibliography and work towards the publication of a book bibliography. This, of course, would have to encompass the research and published work of László Országh, Zoltán Abádi-Nagy, Zsolt Virágos, and other Hungarian experts of American Studies. Although it is only natural that the more urgent and difficult task of exploring the periodical material should have been given proper priority, the completion of a book bibliography would also be more than worth the candle. When László Országh published his Bevezetés az angol nyelv- és irodalomtudomány bibliográfiájába [Introduction to the Bibliography of English Linguistic and Literary Scholarship; Műhely 7: 6363]—also published in Budapest as a separate off-print in the following year —, in the introduction to his work he observed that "the objective of the present bibliographical outline is to offer a first-aid to those who wish to receive orientation in the fields of English literary scholarship and linguistics" (3). It was a similar incentive that motivated the publication in 1972 of his textbook entitled Bevezetés az amerikanisztikába [Introduction to American Studies]. In the preface to his bibliographical volume Lehel Vadon makes the following 182
