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Last Updated: May 8, 2013 URL: http://libguides.gettysburg.edu/english Print Guide RSS UpdatesShareThis

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Literature Databases -- Quick Search

Simultaneously search the following databases. Need help? Contact a reference librarian.

Quick English Search

 

  • MLA Bibliography
    Provides citations to articles, books, working papers, and more on English and foreign language literature, language, and folklore. Articles date from 1926-present.
  • Academic Search Premier
    Provides citations and some full-text for articles in journals and magazines, covering social sciences, humanities, education, arts, literature, ethnic studies, and more.
 

More Literature Databases

  • Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)
    Provides citations and some full text articles on all aspects of English literature and English language. Covers articles published from 1892-present. 4 simultaneous users
  • MUSCAT
    Find books, DVDs, CDs, and more using Musselman Library's online catalog.
  • Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism
    Provides a comprehensive historical survey of the field's most important figures, schools, and movements. Includes alphabetically arranged entries and subentries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods.
 

Find Background Information on Your Author/Topic

Literature Reference Resources:
Reference sources -- either in print or online -- are great for finding background information on a topic. Find out author information, socio/political history of a time period, important events, names of important scholars in the field, information on a literary movement, and helpful bibliographies for additional reading.

Here are three great options for finding reference material online:

  • Literature Resource Center
    Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from ancient times-present.
  • Oxford Reference Online
    Provides access to encyclopedias and dictionaries in all subject areas. Only 5 simultaneous users.
  • Gale Virtual Reference Library
    Provides a database of encyclopedias and reference sources for research. Coverage include the Arts, Business, Education, the Environment, History, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Religion, Science and Social Science. 2000 – present.
 

Literary Criticism in Library Databases

Literary Criticism Resources:
Use these databases to find sources (journal articles, chapters in books, etc.) that analyze, discuss, and interpret works of literature.

  • MLA Bibliography
    Provides citations to articles, books, working papers, and more on English and foreign language literature, language, and folklore. Articles date from 1926-present.
  • Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)
    Provides citations and some full text articles on all aspects of English literature and English language. Covers articles published from 1892-present. 4 simultaneous users
  • Literature Criticism Online
    Provides excerpts from criticism on literature from classical times to 1800. Our subscription includes: Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Literature Criticism from 1400 – 1800, Shakespeare Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literature Criticism and Contemporary Literature Criticism.
  • MUSCAT: Musselman Library's Catalog
    **Remember, use a KEYWORD search to get started. Once you identify titles that look relevant to your research, start using appropriate SUBJECT HEADINGS to narrow your search.
  • WorldCat (like MUSCAT for the world!)
    Use WorldCat to identify books and other materials that our library doesn’t have. Then, request any item via Interlibrary Loan.
 

Find Texts/Primary Sources

  • Literature Online
    Provides full-text access to over 350,000 works of American and English literature (poetry, fiction, drama, and the Bible). Limited to 4 simultaneous users.
  • Early English Books Online (EEBO)
    Contains page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
  • Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
    Consists of significant English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Includes books, directories, bibles, sheet music, sermons and pamphlets.
  • British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture (NCCO)
    Features a range of primary sources related to the arts in the Victorian era, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores. Covers the long nineteenth century.
  • Essay and General Literature Retrospective
    Provides citations to thousands of essays published between 1900 and 1984. Over 249,000 essays are indexed from single and multi-author collections, plus selected annuals and serials from the United States, Canada and Great Britain.
  • Women Writers Online
    A long-term research project devoted to early modern women's writing and electronic text encoding, Women Writers Online brings texts by pre-Victorian women writers out of the archive and makes them accessible. Coverage ranges from 1400-1850.
  • Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy
    A replication of The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy. Edited by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate. 7 volumes. Covers the years 1840-1927.
  • Digital Scriptorium
    Provides an image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions.
  • Middle English Compendium
    Provides access to the Middle English Dictionary, a bibliography of Middle English prose and verse, and an associated network of electronic resources focused on Middle English. Years of coverage: ca. 1100 - 1485 AD.

Reference Librarian

Profile Image
Kerri Odess-Harnish
Contact Info
Reference & Instruction Librarian
(717) 337-7018
kodessha@gettysburg.edu
Send Email
Subjects:
English, Film Studies, Philosophy
 

Dictionaries

  • Oxford English Dictionary
    Provides full-text access to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive English language dictionary in the world. It contains close to 300,000 entries and over 2.5 million illustrative quotations.
  • Dictionary of Old English
    The Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus is an online database consisting of at least one copy of every surviving Old English text. In some cases, more than one copy is included, if it is significant because of dialect or date.
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