Background Information & Quick Reference Tools

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. 

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Ref. DA28 .O95 2004
Dictionary of Literary Biography Ref. PN451.D43  
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.

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.

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. 

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, follow the Find it @ MU link to get the article elsewhere.

 The major literary databases are: 
MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures
1963-present online.
ABELL: Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature
1920-2003 online.
You can search the MLA Bibliography and ABELL simultaneously through LION:Literature 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:
Academic Search Premier (Contains the full-text of selected journals.) 
Article1st
Web of Science

You may also want to try databases that focus on other disciplines or types of publications:
Historical Abstracts
Sociological Abstracts
Alternative Press Index
GenderWatch
Women Studies Abstracts (Ref. Z7962 .W65)

Print bibliographies provide an overview of scholarly work.
Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, 3rd ed. Ref. PR83.N45 1999
New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature Ref. Z2011.N45
Year's Work in English Studies 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
Literary Reviews in British Periodicals, 1821-1826 Z2013.W36 1977
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index
19th Century Masterfile (1802-1906)
The American Periodicals Series Online (1740-1900)
The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (1890-) (Ref. )
International Index to Periodicals (1907-1965) (Ref. 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.

Primary Sources and Guides to Primary Sources

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.

Chronological listing of periodicals in Special Collections

Eighteenth Century Sources for the Study of English Literature and Culture. Keswick, VA: Micrographics II. 746+ reels.
Note: Guide: SPEC-R PR 1134 .E36 1979. Eighteenth Century Source for the Study of English Literature and Culture. (Reels 1-746). Each title in the collection is cataloged.
FILM (401A:17).

English Literary Periodicals 1681-1900 (Units 1-22). Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. 969 reels (233 titles).
Note: Guide: SPEC-R PN5124.P4 A25 1981. Accessing English Literary Periodicals.
FILM (Room 404. Collection is dispersed and shelved by title in the Periodical Collection). Each title is fully cataloged in MERLIN.

English Stage After the Restoration: Archive of the 18th and 19th Century British Theatre Royal from the British Library, Part I. Brighton: Harvester. 16 reels (50 vols.).
Note: Guide: Z 6621 .B841 British Library Department of Manuscripts. Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts 1854-1887 contains Additional Mss. 23156-23167, 25915, 29631-29643, 29709-29711, 29945-29958, 31972-31977, 33488. 61997. Each play is individually cataloged but the records do not appear in MERLIN at present. Consult the card catalog by subject (Theaters--England--History--Sources).
FILM BOOK 0216.

Plays Printed After 1640. Stratfort-on-Avon: Shakespeare Institute. 9 reels.
Note: Plays are listed by author and title in the card catalog. Partial contents are listed in contents note on main entry catalog card for the collection.
FILM (4D21:14:5).

And so to bed : a bibliography of diaries published in English / by Patricia Pate Havlice. CT25 .H38 1987 

Women in context : two hundred years of British women autobiographers, a reference guide and reader / Barbara Penny Kanner ; with the assistance of Jane Decker ... [et al.]. HQ1593.A3 K35 1997 

British literary magazines / edited by Alvin Sullivan. PN5124.L6 B74 1983 

Personal writings by women to 1900 : a bibliography of American and British writers / compiled by Gwenn Davis and Beverly A. Joyce. Z1229.W8 D38 1989 

Annals of English literature, 1475-1950; the principal publications of each year, together with an alphabetical index of authors with their works. Z2011 .A5 1961 

British diaries : an annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942 / compiled by William Matthews. Z2014.D5 M3 1984 

British autobiographies : an annotated bibliography of British autobiographies published or written before 1951 / compiled by William Matthews. Z2027.A9 M3 1984 

Location register of English literary manuscripts and letters, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries / edited by David C. Sutton.  SPEC RARE Ref. PR441 .L6 1995

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.

Guides to Research

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

Michael J. Marcuse. A Reference Guide for English Studies. (Ref. PR56.M37 1990)

James K. Bracken. Reference Works in British and American Literature (Ref. Z2011.B74 1998)