Subject Guides: English Literatures: 1. English Literatures Reference

Literary Reference

Literature Resource Center (LRC)(Gale) This link opens in a new window Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, critical analysis, and Web resources of authors from every age and literary discipline. Covers more than 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,000 of the most-studied authors. Search by Author Name, Title, Genre, Literary Movement or Literary Themes.
Magill on Literature Plus (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Magill On Literature Plus combines the databases Magill On Literature and Magill On Authors, and so includes all the literary works, reviewed critical analyses and brief plot summaries that are included in Magill On Literature, as well as all the biographies and author essays included in Magill On Authors, such as all of "Masterplots and Masterplots II", "Cyclopedia of World Authors", "Cyclopedia of Literary Characters", and "Magill's Literary Annual".
Contemporary Authors This link opens in a new window Provides complete biographical and bibliographical information and references on more than 120,000 U.S. and international authors.
Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window Indexes the full-text of nine literary databases dealing with English poetry and drama, 18th century fiction, American and African poetry and Shakespeare. Also contains selected reference works and provides access to related literary websites.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) This link opens in a new window Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) contains 55,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2002.
Short Story Index (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Index to short stories written in or translated into English that have appeared in collections and selected periodicals. It contains over 76,500 entries including 1,350 full-text stories. The periodicals are those indexed in Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and Humanities Index. Search using WilsonWeb commands.
Poetry and Short Story Reference Center (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window The most comprehensive collection of full-text poetry, short stories, and supplemental content available, offering users a historically rich collection of hundreds of thousands of poems, as well as biographies and authoritative essays on such topics as poetic forms, movements and techniques. This multifaceted database incorporates information from major respected reference works, books, literary journals as well as proprietary content from EBSCO Publishing, and includes hundreds of thousands of full-text poems and tens of thousands of short stories ranging in period from antiquity to the present. The most studied poems are supplemented with indexing covering subject, poetic forms, poetic themes, techniques, and literary periods, schools, and movements.
Literary Reference Center (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Content includes thousands of plot summaries, essays of literary criticism, author biographies, book reviews, classic and contemporary poems, classic and contemporary short stories, and author interviews.

Encyclopedias, Guides, Handbooks, etc.

Ask the Humanities Reference Help Desk for help finding additonal resources.

Literature Resource Center (LRC)(Gale) This link opens in a new window

Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Liiterature, 1100-1500 - Humanities Reference PR 255 .C34 2009
Edited by Larry Scanlon. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Level 5
Cambridge Guide to Literature in English - Humanities Reference PR 85 .C29x 2006
Edited by Dominic Head. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Level 5
Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English since 1945 - Humanities Reference PR 9340 .G55 2007
Simon Gikandi and Evan Mwangi. New York : Columbia University Press, c2007.
Level 5
Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945 - Humanities Reference PR 9340.5 .O96 2008
Oyekan Owomoyela. New York : Columbia University Press, c2008.
Level 5
Companion to Old and Middle English Literature
Edited by Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2002.
Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English - Humanities ReferencePN 241 .E53 2000
Encyclopedia of Post-colonial Literatures in English - Humanities Reference PR 9080 .A52 E53x 2005
Edited by Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. London ; New York : Routledge, 2005.
Level 5
Harper Handbook to Literature - Humanities Reference PN 41 .F75 1997
Northrop Frye ... [et al.]. 2nd [rev.] ed. New York : Longman, c1997.
Level 5
Medieval British Literature Handbook - Circulating Shelves PR 255 .M43 2009
Edited by Daniel T. Kline. London ; New York : Continuum, c2009.
Oxford Companion to Australian Literature
Edited by William H. Wilde, Joy Hooton, and Barry Andrews
Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature
Edited by Eugene Benson and William Toye
Oxford Companion to English Literature (7th ed.)
Print 6th editon available at Humanities Reference PR 19 .O94 2006, Level 5.
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Literature of all English speaking countries.
Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature
Edited by David Scott Kastan
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The Encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of literature from the Abbey Theatre to Israel Zangwill, covering the entire history of literature in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in the major literary languages (Anglo-Saxon, English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Latin). It includes substantial accounts of individual authors (e.g., Spenser, Pope, Austen) and detailed histories of particular themes, movements, genres, and institutions, whose impact upon the writing or the reading of literature was significant (e.g., The Stationers' Company, the sonnet, the ‘School of Night, ’ or the Sublime).
The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature - Humanities Reference PR 9205 .R68 2011
Edited by Michael Bucknor and Alison Donnell. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2011.
Level 5
Timelines of the Arts and Literature - Humanities Reference NX 447.5 .B76 1994
by David Brownstone and Irene Franck
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This chronology includes areas such as painting, fiction, classical and popular music, film, theater, television, sculpture, belles lettres, photography, dance, and architecture. It ranges from prehistory (100,000-5000 B.C.) through 1992. From 1500 A.D. on, information is presented year by year. Coverage is international, with good coverage of Asia and the Middle East.

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Literary Dictionaries

Dictionary of Literary Biography (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Available in print at Humanities Reference PN 451 .A6

Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
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he best-selling Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (formerly the Concise dictionary) provides clear, concise, and often witty definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma. Now available in a new, fully updated and expanded edition, it offers readers increased coverage of new terms from modern critical and theoretical movements, such as feminism, and schools of American poetry, Spanish verse forms, life writing, and crime fiction.

It includes extensive coverage of traditional drama, versification, rhetoric, and literary history, as well as updated and extended advice on recommended further reading and a pronunciation guide to more than 200 terms. New to this fully revised edition are recommended entry-level web links. Boasting over 1,200 entries, it is an essential reference tool for students of literature in any language.
A Glossary of Literary Terms, 9th ed. - Humanities Reference PN 41 .A184 2009
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M. H. Abrams, Geoffrey Galt Harpham., Boston, MA : Wadsworth Cengage Learning, c2009.
Dictionary of Literary Symbols
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Michael Ferber editor. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1999.
Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs - Humanities Reference PN 43 .D48 1988
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Jean-Charles Seigneuret, editor ... [et al.]. New York : Greenwood Press, 1988.
A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature - Humanities Reference PR 149 .B5 D53 1992

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David Lyle Jeffrey, general editor. Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans, c1992.
Glossary of Poetic Terms
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From Poetry Foundation. Definitions and examples.

Dictionaries

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Language Dictionaries Online This link opens in a new window

Bibliographies

The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature - Humanities Reference PR 83 .X1 N45
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Edited by George Watson. Cambridge [Eng.] : University Press, 1969-

Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window OBO is a library of disciplined-based subject modules. In each subject module, leading scholars have produced a literary guide to the most important and significant sources in an area of study they know best. The guides feature a selective list of bibliographic citations supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult. Each topic has a unique editorial commentary to show how the cited sources are interrelated. The citations promote discoverability as they link out to the sources via your library collection.