The Encyclopedia was published in a format that matches the 1993 second edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. It is slightly smaller in terms of content, containing 1,049 alphabetical pages, over 4,000 entries and approximately one million words, the bulk of which were written by Clute, Grant and Ashley. A later CD-ROM edition contains numerous revisions. The Encyclopedia uses a similar system of categorization to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, but does not include an index of theme entries. A theme index was later included in the on-line addenda: see "External links" below. One of the major differences is that there are no entries related to publishing.
Neologisms
The Encyclopedia often invented new terms for theme entries, rather than using headings that may have previously appeared in critical literature. Examples include:
Instauration Fantasy: a story in which the real world is transformed; the authors cite Little, Big by John Crowley as the first full-fledged example.
Thinning: the gradual loss or decay of magic or vitality, as when the Elves depart from Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings. In many novels by Tim Powers, denizens of the 20th century can work magic, but not as easily as could be done in earlier centuries.
Wainscots: secret societies hiding from the mainstream of society, as in Mary Norton's The Borrowers.
Water Margins: shifting or ill-defined boundaries used as both a physical description and a metaphor; derived from the Japanese television adaptation of The Water Margin.
Polder: defined as "enclaves of toughened reality demarcated by boundaries" that are entered by crossing a threshold. Shangri-La is an example, as is Medwyn's valley in The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.
Crosshatch: A situation where the demarcation line between two realities is blurred and "two or more worlds may simultaneously inhabit the same territory"—such as in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Pariah elite: a marginalized but uniquely talented or knowledgeable minority.
Into the woods: the process of transformation or passage into a new world signalled by entering woods or forests.
Wrongness: the growing awareness that something is "wrong" in the world, such as when the Hobbits first glimpse the Nazgûl in The Lord of the Rings.
Slick Fantasy: a style of Fantasy writing which uses certain specific themes: typically a Pact with the Devil; three wishes; or identity exchange. So named because these were the fantasy stories mostly likely to be published by slick magazines, as opposed to pulp magazines.
Reception
Characterizing the book as "an excellent and highly readable source for fantasy", the industry publication Library Journal described The Encyclopedia of Fantasy as "the first of its kind".
