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Ellis L
ibrary Sourcepack for English 398
Education and the 18th Century Novel
Instructor: Prof. George Justice
Librarian: Anne Barker


Background Information & Quick Reference Tools
Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
Ref. B802.E53 2003
Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain 1780s-1830s
DA529.E53 1992
Encyclopedia of the Novel Ref. PN41.E53 1998
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Ref. PN43.B65 1999
Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Ref. PN43.O94 2000
Feminist Companion to Literature in English Ref. PN471.F45 1990
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Ref. PN1021.N39 1993
Oxford Companion to English Literature Ref. Alcove 9, PR19.O94 2000
Dictionary of Biblical Allusions in English Literature Ref. PR145.F8
English Literature in the Early Eighteenth Century, 1700-1740 (Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 7) PR445.D6
The Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 8) PR 441.B83 1979
English Literature, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 9) PR447.R4 1963
Dictionary of Classical Reference in English Poetry Ref. PR508.C68 S63 1984
The English Novel 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles Ref. PR851.E52 2000

Biographical Sources
Basic biographical information can be found in the following sources.  For more detailed biographies, use the MERLIN catalog to do a subject search on your person's name, putting last name first.  Scroll down the resulting list of subject headings to find biographies.
LION: Literature Online  
Click on "Find Authors" and type in your author's name, last name first. 
Dictionary of Literary Biography Ref. Alcove 9. 
Use the Literary Index or check the index in the last volume of this series to see which volume contains information on your author. The DLB also gives nice lists of the authors' works.

Locating Primary Sources

Search MERLIN by exact title or author, if known.

If you don't know an exact item, do a keyword search in MERLIN, using the following tricks:

  • include in your search s:sources 
  • include in your search s:sources and nth cent* e.g., s:sources and 18th cent* and education
  • include in your search s:early works and nth cent* e.g., s:early works and 18th cent* and education
  • limit by date

The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists works published prior to 1800 in English, many of which we have on microfilm.  The ESTC is available only in the Reference area. 

The Index to English Literary Periodicals indexes articles published in early English journals and magazines. We have all of these on microfilm.

The American Periodical Series Online provides access to the full text of articles published in American journals and magazines, 1741-1900.

LION: Literature Online provides the full text of literary works.


Criticism
Criticism may be published in books or as articles in journals.

Use the MERLIN and MOBIUS catalogs to locate books of criticism about an author or topic. 
Do a subject search on the author's name and scroll to an appropriate subheading. 
For example: Austen, Jane--Criticism and Interpretation.
Do a table of contents search to locate relevant chapters in books with a broader focus.
Note that tables of contents are not included in the catalog records for all books. Another way to find essays in collections is to use The Essay and General Literature Index (Ref. Alcove 9 AI3.E752 )
The keyword search searches for words in author, title, subject headings, tables of contents and notes all at once.  You can use various search options to make your search more precise and to sort the results in various ways.
You may expand your search to include all MOBIUS libraries. Materials requested through MOBIUS are usually delivered in about 48 hours.
If you haven't found enough, use WorldCat to search libraries throughout North America. You may request books from WorldCat by clicking on the Interlibrary Loan button at the top left of each record.

Finding criticism in journal articles is usually a two step process. 
1) Use the following databases and indexes to see what articles have been published and where.  If you're looking for articles from a specific time period, be sure to use an index or database that covers publications from that time. 
2) If the full text of the article is not provided in the database, use the MERLIN catalog to see if we have the journal or newspaper and where we keep it. You may also check Find it @ MU to see if the journal's available electronically. 
If a journal isn't available locally, use the journal request form to tell us what you need. We'll order a photocopy from another source. This is a free service with delivery usually within one to two weeks. Feel free to ask a librarian for help.

 The major literary databases are: 
MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures
1963-present online, 1921-1962 in print in Ref. Alcove 9.
ABELL: Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature

1920-2003 online.

 

Although the MLA  and ABELL specialize in literature, both suffer from a delay in publishing.  
Supplement these specialized indexes with searches in less specialized but more current databases:
Expanded Academic Index 
(Contains the full-text of selected journals.) 
Article1st
Web of Science

 

Print bibliographies provide an overview of scholarly work.
Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, 3rd ed. Ref. Alcove 9 PR83.N45 1999
New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature Ref. Alcove 9 Z2011.N45
Year's Work in English Studies Seminar Room 202J PE58.E6
Eighteenth-Century Studies PR441.E33 (1967-2001 in print; 1967- available electronically)
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture CB411.S8
Studies in English Literature PR1.S74 (1961-2000 in print; 1999- available electronically)

A Guide to Serial Bibliographies for Modern Literature (Ref. PN695.W67 1995) lists many additional specialized bibliographies.

To locate older critical materials, use the following databases and reference tools.
Index to English Literary Periodicals, 1681 to 1941 (Microfilm of these periodicals is available in Special Collections.)
Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749-1774 Ref. Z1035.A1 F67 1990
Index to Book Reviews in England, 1775-1800 Ref. Z1035.A1 F672 1997
Literary Reviews in British Periodicals, 1789-1797 Ref. Z2013.W36 1979
Literary Reviews in British Periodicals, 1798-1820 Ref. Z2013.W36
19th Century Masterfile (1802-1906)
The American Periodicals Series Online
(1740-1900)
The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900 (Ref. computers)
The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (1890-) (Ref. Index Table 12)
International Index to Periodicals (1907-1965) (Ref. Alcove 2 AI3.R49)
Literary Index to American Magazines 1850-1900 Ref. PS 214.W38 1996
Literary Index to American Magazines, 1815-1865 Ref. Z6513.W44

The Literary Index indexes the many Gale literature criticism sets. These books excerpt literary criticism from all periods on individual authors.

Alternative and minority publications are not always well represented in the major databases. Use these indexes to hear these voices.
Alt-Press Watch
Alternative Press Index
Ethnic News Watch
GenderWatch

Women Studies Abstracts (Ref. Alcove 2 Z7962 .W65)


Electronic Literary Texts 
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.


Additional collections:
The Internet Public Library
Online Text Page

Project Gutenberg

Collections of Internet Resources

Literary Resources on the Net

Voice of the Shuttle
LION: Literature Online contains a database of literary web sites. From the main LION menu, choose Search Criticism and Reference, then WWW.
The Internet Public Library

Guides to Research

James L. Harner. Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies (Ref. Alcove 9, PR83.H34 2000)

Michael J. Marcuse. A Reference Guide for English Studies. (Ref. Alcove 9, PR56.M37 1990)
James K. Bracken. Reference Works in British and American Literature (Ref. Alcove 9, Z2011.B74 1998)

Citation Guides
MLA style manuals
are available on Index Table 11 in Ellis' Reference area in 1 South.
  

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