Therefore, because of this renaissance and the widespread interest attaching to it, we should expect to find in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_—that “supreme book of knowledge,” that “complete library” of information—a full and comprehensive treatment of the modern drama. The claims made in the advertising of the _Britannica_ would lead one immediately to assume that so important and universally absorbing a subject would be set forth adequately. The drama has played, and will continue to play, a large part in our modern intellectual life; and, in an educational work of the alleged scope and completeness of this encyclopædia, it should be accorded careful and liberal consideration.
But in this department, as in others equally important, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ fails inexcusably. I have carefully inspected its dramatic information, and its inadequacy left me with a feeling which fell little short of amazement. Not only is the modern drama given scant consideration, but those comparatively few articles which deal with it are so inept and desultory that no correct idea of the development of modern dramatic literature can be obtained. As in the Encyclopædia’s other departments of modern æsthetic culture, the work of Great Britain is accorded an abnormally large amount of space, while the work of other nations is—if mentioned at all—dismissed with comparatively few words. The British drama, like the British novel, is exaggerated, both through implication and direct statement, out of all proportion to its inherent significance. Many of the truly great and important dramatists of foreign countries are omitted entirely in order to make way for minor and inconsequent Englishmen; and the few towering figures from abroad who are given space draw only a few lines of biographical mention, whereas second-rate British writers are accorded long and minutely specific articles.
Furthermore, the Encyclopædia reveals the fact that in a great many instances it has not been brought up to date. As a result, even when an alien dramatist has found his way into the exclusive British circle whose activities dominate the æsthetic departments of the _Britannica_, one does not have a complete record of his work. This failure to revise adequately old material and to make the information as recent as the physical exigencies of book-making would permit, results no doubt in the fact that even the more recent and important English dramatists have suffered the fate of omission along with their less favored confrères from other countries. Consequently, the dramatic material is not only biased but is inadequate from the British standpoint as well.