传记资料系指与某位人物有关的各种数据和史实,诸如生卒年、国籍、职业、经历、对社会的贡献以及人们对他的评价,等等。在英美文学的教学中,我们通常需要详尽地收集有关作家的传记资料。譬如,在讲解英美文学史涉及英国当代作家劳伦斯(D.H.Lawrence,1880—1930)时,就得广泛收集劳伦斯的传记资料,其中包括各种有关的传记和评论书目,以便向学生推荐,供他们进一步学习和研究。至于怎样收集这些资料,则务须注意一条重要途径,那就是翻检传记工具书。本文拟就当前几部最常用的英美作家传记工具书分别略作评介,供教学参考。 Biography data refers to a variety of figures and historical facts related to a person, such as birth and death, nationality, occupation, experience, contribution to society and the people of his evaluation, and so on. In the teaching of Anglo-American literature, we usually need to collect detailed biographical information about writers. For example, when explaining the history of Anglo-American literature to the British contemporary author DH Lawrence (1880-1930), there is extensive collection of biography of Lawrence, which includes a variety of biographies and commentary books to recommend to students for their further Study and research. As for how to collect such information, one important way to pay attention to is to turn over the biographical reference books. This article is intended to comment on several current most commonly used biographies of British and American authors’ biographies for reference.