ENGLISH LITERATURE RESEARCH GUIDE

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REFERENCE

Dictionaries

This short list represents a selection of printed reference sources on English and American literature and on literary theory. Most of these sources are available in the Reference Room.

  • Altick, Richard Daniel. The Art of Literary Research. New York: Norton, 1963.
    Ref PR33.A4
  • Black, Joseph, ed. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2006.
    Ref PR1109.B6747
  • The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
    Ref PR457.C33
  • Dictionary of Literary Characters. Edinburgh, UK: Chambers, 2004.
    Ref PR19.D53

  • Encyclopedia of American Poetry. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001.
    Ref PS323.5E53

  • Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1998.
    Ref Z2011.H34

  • Hart, James David. The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
    Ref PS21.H3

  • Harvey, Paul. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Ed. Dorothy Eagle. 4th ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1969.
    Ref PR19.H3

  • The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
    Ref PN81.J55

  • Literary History of the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1957.
    Ref PS88.L522

  • The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
    Ref PN1021.P75

  • A Reader's Guide to Twentieth-Century Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
    Ref PR888.P53R43

On-line Sources

Here you can find a list of pertinent on-line reference sources:

  • The Literary Encyclopedia provides biographical information about major literary, cultural, philosophical and historical figures; descriptive profiles of major cultural works, introductory coverage of the relevant historical contexts and guidance to valuable secondary readings.

     

BOOK SEARCHING

Most of the books in English and American literature can be found on the shelves under P in the Library of Congress Classification System. Books on English literature are located under PR, and books on American literature under PS. Other books related to literature in general can be found under PN, with literary criticism located under PN75-99.

The Library catalog allows different kind of searches, including Subject Keyword and Subject Browse. A Subject Keyword search will retrieve all the subject strings containing the word you searched for. A Subject Browse search will lead to the controlled subject headings list. Determining which "controlled" subject headings are established for aspects of a topic is an important step in finding relevant material. You may want to browse on the broader subject (e.g. English literature) to find out what's available in the Library.

Some official subject headings and heading patterns are listed below:

Books on Single Authors
The subject search allows the retrieval of books on specific authors. The search term should be built in the following form:
Last name, First name
e.g. Orwell, George
Anthologies
Beside English and American writers’ single works, the Library also has a selection of anthologies. They can be found in the catalog using the subject keyword search and entering the following search terms:

Literary collections

 

JOURNALS

Literary Reviews

The Library subscribe to these print literary reviews:

Electronic Collections

A large collection of electronic journals is available through library databases, such as JSTOR, and EBSCO (Academic Search Premier).

These are some of the journals available in full-text, directly accessible through Journals, A to Z:

ENGLISH LITERATURE ON THE WEB

 

      Last updated: 8-9-2009