English 2100 Writing About Literature

Background Resources

• LION Reference includes a selection of literary reference works.
• The Gale Virtual Reference Library provides specialized online encyclopedias for background information.
• Oxford Reference Online Premier provides concise reference sources.
• Check the Oxford English Dictionary for etymologies and history of words.
• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism.

Finding Books

• The MERLIN catalog shows materials in the MU Libraries.
• The MOBIUS catalog shows materials from Missouri academic libraries.
• WorldCat shows materials from many libraries worldwide.
• Google Book Search provides fulltext access to older books (usually pre-1925) and indexes many more recent books.

Finding Articles

Use these databases to identify articles on your topic:

• MLA International Bibliography is the main bibliography for the study of languages and literatures.
• LION: Literature Online
  • Choose Criticism & Reference from the sidebar.
  • Choose Criticism to search both the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) and the full text of 250+ core journals.
  • Choose Reference to search a variety of literary encyclopedias and handbooks.
  • Choose Web Sites for a select collection of links.
• World Shakespeare Bibliography Online
• The Literary Index indexes the many Gale literature criticism sets. These books excerpt literary criticism from all periods on individual authors.
  • Contemporary Literary Criticism (Ref. PN779.C6)
  • Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (Ref. PN94.T88)
  • Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism (Ref. PN761.N5)
  • Literature Criticism, from 1400-1800 (Ref. PN80.L57)
  • Poetry Criticism (Ref. PN1010 .P499)
  • Short Story Criticism (Ref. PN3373 .S386 )
• Academic Search Premier inddexes the core journals in all fields.
• Academic OneFile competes with Academic Search Premier, indexing another selection of journals.
• The Reader's Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)
• International Index to Periodicals (1907-1965) (Ref. AI3.R49)
• America: History and Life covers history of the U.S. and Canada.
• Historical Abstracts covers world history 1450-present, excluding the U.S. and Canada.
• International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) gives good interdisciplinary access to the period of 500-1500.
• GenderWatch covers Women's Studies publications.
• Alternative Press Index provides access to alternative, radical, and left periodicals.
• JSTOR is digital storage of long runs of significant journals. Good for very detailed searching.
• Project Muse is similar to JSTOR, but offers more recent coverage.

Click on to locate a copy of the article online, in the library, or through ILL@MU.

Finding Book Reviews

Book reviews may not be as analytical or scholarly as criticism, but reflect more immediate reaction to a book upon publication.

• Academic Search Premier
  Choose the Advanced Search, and select Book Review in the Document Type menu.
• Academic OneFile Limit by document type.
• Lexis-Nexis Academic
  Full text of newspapers and magazines from the mid-1980s on. Choose the "News", then under select sources choose "Book, movie, music, play, and video reviews". Search for the author and title of the book being reviewed.
• ABELL
  Carries reviews from 1917 on. Search your author's name in the author slot (not subject!) and limit to reviews in the drop-down menu at the bottom.
• Book Review Digest (Ready Ref. Z1219 .C96 1905-2003)
• Book Review Index (Ready Ref. Z1035.A1 B62 1965-present)
• Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)
  Search the author of the book being reviewed, last name first and limit to book reviews.
• Nineteenth Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature (Ready Ref. AI3.R496 1890-1922)
  Look under the author of the book being reviewed, last name first.

Finding Primary Sources

• The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists works of all sorts published prior to 1800 in English, many of which we have on microfilm. The MERLIN Catalog includes records for the titles held by MU and we can borrow others through ILL@MU.
• The Index to English Literary Periodicals indexes articles published in early English journals and magazines contained in the microfilm set English Literary Periodicals 1681-1914
  Note: This Index is a work in progress, so you may also want to use the guide Accessing English Literary Periodicals ( SPEC-R PN5124.P4 A25 1981). See also the Chronological Listing of Periodicals by Decade.
• ECCO: Eighteenth Century Collections Online provides the full text of works published in England in the 18th century.
• The American Periodicals Series Online (1740-1900) contains the full text of journals and magazines published in the American colonies and United States, 1740-1900.
• Early American Imprints, Series I contains the full text of books published in America 1639-1800.
  Although this covers only American publications, these are often reprints of materials originally published in Britain.
• Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819)
• Early American Newspapers, Series I (1690-1876)
• C19: The Nineteenth Century Index
• LION: Literature Online provides online texts of many English and American literary works with a search mechanism to facilitate text analysis.
  From the main LION menu, choose Search Texts to search for words and phrases within a specific work or group of works. The advanced search feature allows you to define a corpus by period, literary movement, author's gender or ethnicity, and other criteria.
• The Google Books project indexes thousands of books and allows viewing of books that are in the public domain, including most books published prior to 1925.
• Through MERLIN, using the advanced search option
  • limit by date
  • include in your search s: sources
  • include in your search s: sources and nth cent* e.g., s: sources and 16th cent* and marriage
  • include in your search s: early works and nth cent* e.g., s: early works and 16th cent* and marriage
  • include in your search s: personal narratives

MERLIN lists not only printed books, but also links to electronic books, and many items contained in large microfilm collections. Microforms and the equipment needed to view, print, or scan the materials are found in Special Collections on the fourth floor West of Ellis Library. See the guide to the Microform Collection for detailed information on the microfilm sets, including some that are not analyzed in the MERLIN Catalog.

Finding Visual Resources

• ARTStor is an image library of over 500,000 images in all subject areas.
• CAMIO, the Catalog of Art Museum Images Online provides images licensed for educational purposes.
• British Library Images Online provides many useful images.
• Google Images can also be useful, although not as precise.

Resources for Short Fiction

Resources for Poetry