Information Services

English literature

Some useful resources for English Literature are listed below.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description: Covers all aspects and periods of English literature, including British, American and Commonwealth writing. Coverage is international, including material in languages other than English published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. ABELL is complied under the auspices of The Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA).
Coverage: Anglo-Saxon literature- present day literature

 

Academic Search Complete

Access information: Available on and off campus.
Description: The Academic Search Complete multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 8,500 journals, including full text for more than  7,300 peer-reviewed titles. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals.
Coverage: 1887-present.

 

American National Biography Online

Access information:

Access on and off campus

Description:

American National Biography (ANB) offers portraits of more than 19,000 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life -- whose lives have shaped the nation. From missionaries to musicians, social workers to statisticians, cowboys to chemists, and Vikings to astronauts, the portraits in the ANB reflect the rich diversity of American life from pre-colonial times to the present day. New biographies are added to the ANB on a regular basis, and revisions are made to already published entries, giving you access to the most up-to-date and accurate information available.

 

 American Periodicals

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description: This database contains over 1500 full-text periodicals published in between 1740 and 1940. Subjects cover history, literature, history of science and medicine, law, news and magazines, politics, religion, education, women’s studies, and art. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and ground-breaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.
Coverage 1740-1940

 

 
Access information: Access on and off-campus. Not working? Try clearing your cookies. Alternatively, use the Alternative login (with the VPN service if off campus) and choose Web of Science Core Collection from "All Databases" drop down menu.
Description: Part of Web of Science Core Collection. A multidisciplinary index containing details of every substantive item in 1,200 arts and humanities journals, as well as references to books included in book reviews, and live performances, films, records, and television and radio broadcasts. Contains over 2 million references.
Coverage: 1906 - present.

 

Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection, Volumes I and II present the most important dramatic masterpieces and contemporary plays from the archive of the United States premiere radio theatre company. The plays—which include some of the most significant dramatic literature of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries—showcase leading actors from around the world recorded with state-of-art sound technology.  These curated titles can be used for research and instruction well beyond drama study as they give voice to underrepresented groups and address complicated historical, cultural, and social issues

 

BBC Literary Adaptations in Video

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: This collection of 236 titles comprises a treasure trove of BBC productions of famous literary works, many that were buried in the BBC archive for the past few decades. From Dickens to Shakespeare, from Chekhov to Arthur Miller, from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley, a great breadth of works is included. Talent like Mark Rylance, John Gielgud, Ian McKellen, Colin Firth, and more make this product a must-have for theatre, drama, performing arts, and literature courses. In addition to actual performances, the product includes titles like Face to Face where actors and directors discuss their craft.

 

Beckett Digital Library

Access information: Available on and off campus
Description: The BDL is a digital reconstruction of Samuel Beckett's personal library, based on the volumes preserved at his apartment in Paris which currently houses 760 extant volumes and 248 virtual entries. The BDL module, being part of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project,  contains scans of book covers, title pages, all pages with reading traces, flyleaves, colophons, tables of contents, indexes and inserts of various kinds. In addition to facsimiles, it also offers transcriptions of readings traces and links to Beckett's manuscripts. The module is both browsable and full text searchable. The BDL is accompanied by a monograph (Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon, Samuel Beckett's Library, Cambridge UP, 2013) which can be found in DiscoverEd.

 

Black Drama Third Edition

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: Black Drama, now in its third edition, contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. James Vernon Hatch, the playwright, historian, and curator of the landmark Hatch-Billops Collection, is the project’s editorial advisor. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

 

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries

Access information:

Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries spans more than 400 years of personal writings, bringing together the voices of women from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Complementing Alexander Street’s North American Women's Letters and Diaries, the database lets researchers view history in the context of women’s thoughts—their struggles, achievements, passions, pursuits, and desires.

 

British Periodicals via ProQuest

British Periodicals I & II via Journal Archives

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
Userguide: http://proquest.libguides.com/britishperiodicals
Coverage: from 1680s to 1950s

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Cross search the complete collection of Cambridge Companions. Full text is available for all publications. The Collections comprises the Companions to Literature and the Classics, the Companions to Music and the Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture.

 

Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online

Access information. Access on and off campus.
Description. This is the online edition of the same seven-volume print title, but not just. The fully searchable online edition includes all the original introductions, collations, and commentary, but it also complements, develops, and vastly extends the print edition with a large and flexible array of textual and contextual materials. In addition, the Online Edition includes a comprehensive body of essays and archives necessary for full study of Jonson’s life, performance history, and afterlife. In total, the edition contains around 90 old-spelling texts, 550 contextual documents, 80 essays, several hundred high-quality images, and 100 music scores; it lists details of more than 1300 stage performances, and has a cross-linked bibliography of over 7000 items.

 

Carcanet Poetry Collection

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

Carcanet publishes the most comprehensive and diverse list of modern and classic poetry in English and in translation, as well as a range of inventive fiction, Lives and Letters and literary criticism. The digital Carcanet Collection offers access to more than 100 titles, including career-defining new work from the poets laureate of Jamaica (Mervyn Morris) and Wales (Gillian Clarke), a debut from rising star Joey Connolly, plus much-anticipated follow-up collections from Sinead Morrissey, Tara Bergin, Caroline Bird and Karen McCarthy Woolf. Each title, and the collection as a whole, is fully-searchable by keyword. Mobile users can also download the 'Exactly' app on an iOS or Android device from the relevant app store, and instantly access the book collection.  Access will be granted to new e-books published throughout the year.

 

Carlyle Letters

Access information: Available free on and off campus.
Description: The Carlyle Letters Online includes over 12,000 letter written by Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle from 1812 to 1859, including correspondence with more than 600 recipients, such as Rober Browning, George Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Stuart Mill and Charles Dickens.
Coverage: 1812-1859.
Additional Information: For further information about the Carlyle Letters project, please see the School of English Literature website here.

 

Digital Theatre Plus

Access information:

Access on and off campus. Enter UoE email address and select University of Edinburgh from the drop-down menu.

Description:

Digital Theatre+ provides access to 600+ theatre productions and 21,000 pages of supporting educational resources, with over 800 videos of quality live performances of classic, contemporary and international productions.

 

Drama Online

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

Drama Online is a digital library of the world’s most studied and critically-acclaimed plays, accompanied by a wealth of innovative teaching and performance tools, critical analysis, contextual information, references and practical texts. We have subscribed to following components:

  • Nick Hern Books Collection: Over 500 modern plays from specialist theatre publisher Nick Hern Books featuring pre-eminent playwrights including Howard Brenton, Jez Butterworth, and Caryl Churchill.
  • The RSC Live Collection: 17 films of live productions from the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2013 to the cutting-edge 2016-17 production of The Tempest starring Simon Russell-Beale
  • Shakespeare's Globe On Screen (2008-2015): 21 films recorded live on the Globe stage from leading actors including Mark Rylance, Stephen Fry, and Roger Allam’s Olivier Award-winning Falstaff in Henry IV
  • Shakespeare’s Globe on Screen 2 (2016-2018): Features landmark productions from the Globe Theatre’s most recent seasons, including the first production from the indoor Jacobean theatre, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2014
  • Shakespeare in the Present: A six hour acting masterclass with international coach Patsy Rodenburg, starring Joseph Fiennes
  • Stage on Screen: Critically acclaimed stage productions of four key set drama and literature texts: The Duchess of Malfi, Doctor Faustus, The School for Scandal, and Volpone.
  • Shakespeare’s Heroes and Villains: Steven Berkoff: A 90 minute masterclass from Steven Berkoff, world-renowned writer, director, and actor.
  • Maxine Peake as Hamlet: A landmark reinvention of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Maxine Peake in the title role.
  • Oberon Books Collection: A unique collection of over 500 titles of play texts from ground-breaking British plays to the best of international drama and plays in translation.

 

Early American Imprints, Series I

Access Access on and off campus.
Description Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 contains virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America over a 160-year period. Digitized from Early American Imprints, Series I is based on Charles Evans' "American Bibliography" and Roger Bristol's supplement. Series I also offers new imprints not available in microform editions.
Coverage 1639-1800

 

Early English Books Online - ProQuest website

 Early English Books Online - JISC Historical Texts website

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile 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. Most books are in English (134,417), but there are also hundreds of books in other European languages including Latin (9060), French (678), Welsh (205), Ancient Greek (147), Greek (112), Italian (95), Scots (88), German (63), Spanish (32), Hebrew (12), Scottish Gaelic (8), Portuguese (7), Arabic (6), and other Roman languages (795).

Users can explore complete, digitized images of all the works listed in these key bibliographic records of English literature: The Short-Title Catalogue (Pollard & Redgrave, 1475-1640); The Short-Title Catalogue II (Wing, 1641-1700); The Thomason Tracts; and the Early English Books Tract Supplements, as well as original almanacs, pamphlets, musical scores, prayer books and other primary sources.

Cross-searchable with Early European Books on the Early Modern Books platform.

Cross searchable with Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century collection and the UK Medical Heritage Library (UKMHL) on the JISC Historical Texts platform. The JISC Historical Texts platform does not contain any annual updates.

 

Coverage: 1470-1700. Approximately 200-500 new titles are added to EEBO every year (on the ProQuest platform).
Userguide: https://proquest.libguides.com/eebopqp 

 

Early European Books Online

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024 - NB applies to collections 5-23 only, collections 1-4 are perpetually licensed content.
Description:

Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the close of the seventeenth century, offering full-colour, high-resolution facsimile images of rare and hard-to-access printed sources.

Cross searchable with Early English Books Online on the Early Modern Books platform.

Early European Books is divided into 18 collections:

  • Collection 1 contains 2500 titles (P); Collection 2 contains 2700 titles(P);
  • Collection 3 contains 10,000 titles(P); Collection 4 contains 9200 titles(P);
  • Collection 5 contains 5500 titles (S);  Collection 6 contains 3500 titles(S);
  • Collection 7 contains 7400 titles (S); Collection 8 contains 5300 titles(S);
  • Collection 9 contains 3300 titles (S); Collection 10 contains 2600 titles(S);
  • Collection 11 contains 2200 titles (S); Collection 12 contains 1200 titles(S);
  • Collection 13 contains 5000 titles (S); Collection 14 contains 1100 titles(S);
  • Collection 15 contains 3000 titles (S); Collection 16 contains 1350 titles(S);
  • Collection 17 contains 1180 titles (S); Collection 18 contains 900 titles(S);
  • Collection 19 contains 1043 titles (S); Collection 20 contains 900 titles (S);
  • Collection 21 contains 5,100 titles (S); Collection 22 contains 556 titles (S).
  • Collection 23 contains 1900 titles (S).

Early European Books Online is a mix of perpetually licensed content, marked (P) above and subscribed content, marked (S) above.

Coverage: Over 77,000 e-books. The University of Edinburgh has access to Collections 1 - 23 and the Wellcome Trust collection. Further details can be found at http://proquest.libguides.com/eeb

 

Early Modern Books

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

An integrated search across both Early English Books Online and Early European Books.

Early Modern Books covers material from the British Isles and Europe for the period 1450-1700. An integrated search across both Early English Books Online and Early European Books allows scholars to view materials from over 225 source libraries worldwide. EEBO's content draws on authoritative short-title catalogues of the period and features many text transcriptions specially created for the product. Content from Europe covers the curated Early European Books Collections from 4 national libraries and London's Wellcome Library.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus.
Description: Contains over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes) published during the 18th Century, covering a range of subjects including history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, and science. The full text of the collection is searchable, from books and directories, Bibles, sheet music and sermons to advertisements.
Coverage: 18th Century.

 

Access: On and off campus
Description: The Eighteenth Century Journals portal consists of five Sections, containing digitised images of about 270 rare journals printed between c1685 and 1835. Topics cover a very wide range of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life, including: colonial life; provincial and rural affairs; the French and American revolutions; reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe; political debates; and London coffee house gossip and discussion, etc. Many of these journal are ephemeral, lasting only for a handful of issues, others run for several years. The publisher suggests that all of the titles in this portal have been carefully screened against other eighteenth century e-resources to ensure that there is minimal overlap. Resources checked include Early English Books Online (EEBO); Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers, Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), The Burney Newspaper Collection, and British Periodicals (1680s to 1930s), all of which are in our Database list.
Coverage: 1685-1835

 

Electronic Enlightenment

Access information:

Access on and off-campus.

Description: This scholarly research project of the University of Oxford Humanities Division provides online access to correspondence between 18th-century thinkers and writers, from over 70,000 historical documents.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus.
Description: Collection of 60,000 images of original manuscripts and printed material with accompanying thematic essays. The content comes from library and archive collections worldwide, and can used to support teaching and learning. Full details of how to incorporate images into course materials are provided.
Coverage: 1492-1962.

 

English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) 

Access information: Access on and off campus. 
Description:

The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) covers monograph and serial letterpress items printed before 1801; printed in the British Isles, Colonial America, United States of America (1776-1800), Canada, or territories governed by Britain, in all languages; printed in any other part of the world, wholly or partly in English or other British vernaculars; with false imprints claiming publication in London, in any language. Contains every item in Pollard and Redgrave A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475-1640 (STC); in Wing A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of English Books Printed in Other Countries 1641-1700; in the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (the predecessor of ESTC), including items catalogued by the American Antiquarian Society as part of the North American Imprints Program (NAIP); newspapers and other serials which began publication before 1801.

Coverage: 1473-1800.
Note: Use code "ed_itw" when following links from ESTC to ECCO.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

To mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies in 1623 (otherwise known as the First Folio), this resource brings together dozens of digitised copies of this literary masterpiece. For the first time in history, you will be able to compare them, side by side, from the comfort of your own home.  As well as the stories told through the plays themselves, each copy offers up another narrative, depicting their unique journeys through history. Some are in prime condition, while others have received annotations, tears, or even lost pages. Many also bear printed differences – changes made by the printers as they produced each copy. 

 

Gale Literature

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

Gale Literature brings together several of Gale’s literary databases into one seamlessly cross-searchable resource on authors and their works, literary movements or genres, journal articles, literary criticism, as well as reviews of bestsellers. Currently users can cross-search these collections with Gale Literature:

  • Literature Criticism Online, one of the largest, most extensive compilations of literary commentary available.
  • Literature Resources Center, offering up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism, and reviews on more than 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods, and from around the world.
  • Contemporary Authors, find the biographies and bibliographies of thousands of U.S. and international authors. Continuously updated.
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography, explore the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.
  • LitFinder, containing a wealth of literary works, including over 150,000 full-text poems and 800,000+ poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays.
  • Scribner Writers Series, providing original, scholar signed essays on the lives and works of authors from around the world from all time periods.
  • Something about the Author, examine the lives and works of children and young adult authors and illustrators.
  • Twayne's Authors Series, devoted to in-depth critical introductions to the lives and works of major writers of the world within the context of the time period in which they lived.
Coverage: For details of the above named collections - click here.

 

Gale Research Complete

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Gale Research Complete is a database cross-search platform which incorporates Gale Academic OneFile, General OneFile, Gale eBooks, Gale OneFile News, Gale Literature, and Archives Unbound in Gale Primary Sources. All these databases are individually listed in Databases A-Z. The resources within Gale Research Complete offer high quality, authoritative primary source and reference content from over 28,000 periodicals, 4000 Gale eBook volumes, 1.5 million items of literary criticism and full text literary works, and more than 13 million pages of rare primary sources from the world's great libraries. The resources address the needs of users at all academic levels, from the first year student to the experienced researcher, and cover every research area and discipline including history, literature, business and science and medicine.

 

 

Historical Texts

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Historical Texts brings together four historically significant collections into a single database search platform: Early English Books Online (EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century Collection and the UK Medical Heritage Library collection (UKMHL). For descriptions of and alternative access to EEBO and ECCO, see their separate entries in this Database A-Z list. The British Library 19th Century Collection offers over 65,000 recently digitised editions during 1789-1914, many of which are previously rare and inaccessible titles. The UK Medical Heritage Library collection (1800-1900’s) contains the images and full text of over 66,000 19th century European medical publications. The UKMHL visualisations are available on a separate platform

Coverage: 1473 to early 1910s

 

History of Feminism (Routledge)

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

History of Feminism is a new online platform that brings together the best and most relevant scholarship from Taylor & Francis, its imprints, and its authors. It is the first part of the new Routledge Historical Resources online programme that will provide both academics and students with an in depth research tool for studying the long Nineteenth Century through thematic collections in areas such as Feminism, the History of Economic Thought, Romanticism and Empire. This resource covers the fascinating subject of feminism over the long nineteenth century (1776–1928). It contains an extensive range of primary and secondary resources, including full books, selected chapters, and journal articles, as well as new thematic essays, and subject introductions on its structural themes:

  • Politics and Law
  • Religion and Belief
  • Education
  • Literature and Writings
  • Women at Home
  • Society and Culture
  • Empire
  • Movements and Ideologies

 

Informit Literature & Culture Collection

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description: The Informit Literature & Culture Collection provides access to a range of publications covering Australia’s literary and cultural heritage. The database contains the best of new writing, thought and debate including essays, fiction, poetry and critical writing with over 74,000 full text records from 60 resources with back files from 1940.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: This authoritative online database of Shakespeare-related content in film, television, radio and video recordings is international in scope, is regularly updated and currently holds nearly 8,000 records dating from the 1890s to the present day.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus. Select International Medieval Bibliography on the Brepolis Login Portal page.
Description: Covers articles published in journals and in miscellany volumes. All subjects relating to the Middle Ages are included, within the date range 300-1500 AD. Geographical areas covered are Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

 

The John Johnson Collection

Access: Access on and off campus.
Description: The John Johnson Collection is a unique collection of printed ephemera scanned in colour by ProQuest in partnership with the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England. Housed in the Bodleian Library, the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera is widely recognized as one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world and generally regarded as the most significant single collection of ephemera in the UK. The ProQuest digitized version is a selection from the full collection, drawn from five subject areas: crimes, murders, and executions; advertising; booktrade; nineteenth-century entertainment; and popular prints. The John Johnson Collection is a great source for studying Britain's cultural, social, industrial, and technological heritage.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Full-text journal archive service providing access to complete back runs of all the scholarly journals currently available in JSTOR. Recent volumes are excluded, usually the last 3-5 years, but each year a further year is added to the archive. Each title is listed in DiscoverEd. About 4-5% of Artstor images migrated into Jstor are not accessible outside the United States.
Coverage:

The collections currently available are:

  • Arts & Sciences 1-15
  • Biological Sciences
  • Business I-IV Collection
  • Business & Economics
  • Ecology & Botany II
  • Global Plants
  • Health & General Sciences
  • Hebrew Journals
  • Ireland
  • Jewish Studies Collection
  • JSTOR Essential Collection
  • Language & Literature
  • Lives of Literature
  • Life Sciences
  • Mathematics & Statistics
  • Music
  • Religion and Theology
  • Security Studies
  • Sustainability
  • World Heritage Sites: Africa

The 19th Century British Pamphlets Collections is also available via JSTOR.  Userguides to the various collections can be found at https://guides.jstor.org

 

Literary Print Culture : The Stationers’ Company Archive

Access information:

Access on and off campus

Description: Explore this unique archive relating to the history of printing, publishing and bookselling dating from 1554 to the 21st century. The Stationers’ Company was a key agent in the process by which the book trade was regulated and monitored and thus it is widely regarded as one of the most important sources for studying the history of the book, publishing history, the history of copyright and the workings of an early London Livery Company. 

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Literary Reference Center is a rich full-text literary database covering all genres and time periods. It includes thousands of synopses, critical essays, book reviews, literary journals and author biographies, plus full-text classic novels, short stories and poems.

 

Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

This digital research source from Adam Matthew provides you with access to a huge range of primary sources covering social, cultural, political, scientific and religious perspectives, from the 15th to early 18th centuries. The breadth of sources provided within this collection is extensive, from sources concerning the Black Death to the Restoration of the English monarchy and the Glorious Revolution. Includes illuminated manuscripts, personal papers, diaries and journals, correspondence, rare books, receipt books, account books and manuscript sheet music.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Access to and interconnectivity between three major Middle English electronic resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary, a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse, based on the MED bibliographies, and a Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, as well as links to an associated network of electronic resources.

 

MLA International Bibliography

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Citations to critical documents on literature, language, linguistics and folklore from over 4,400 journals and series and over 1000 book publishers. Also covers monographs, reference works and collections, including working papers, conference papers and proceedings.  Coverage includes literature from all over the world--Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. Folklore is represented by folk literature, music, art, rituals, and belief systems. Linguistics and language materials range from history and theory of linguistics, comparative linguistics, semantics, stylistics, and syntax to translation. Other topics include literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater), and history of printing and publishing.  A userguide available from https://www.mla.org/Publications/MLA-International-Bibliography/Tutorial-Videos/EBSCO-Tutorial-Videos
Coverage: Over 2.5 million records from 1926 to date.  Updated 9 times per year with over 66,000 records added annually.

 

The National Theatre Collection

Access information:

Access on and off campus

  The Library's subscription to Volume 2 expires 31 July 2024.
Description:

The National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streamed video of world-class theatre productions and unique archival material, offering insight into British theatre-making and performance studies. Volume 1 contains 30 video performances and Volume 2 has 12 performances. All the performance recordings include captions.  As a supplement to the filmed productions, exclusive digitised archival materials such as prompt scripts, costume designs, and more are available to provide behind-the-scenes background and contextual information. The featured 40 performances are:

Volume 1

  • Comedies: She Stoops to Conquer (2012), One Man, Two Guvnors (2011), London Assurance (2010)
  • 20th century classics: Yerma (2017), The Cherry Orchard (2011), The Deep Blue Sea (2016), Les Blancs (2016), A Streetcar Named Desire (2014), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2018), Consent (2017), Translations (2018)
  • Shakespeare plays: Hamlet (2010), Othello (2013), King Lear (2011), Macbeth (2018), Julius Caesar (2018), Coriolanus (2014), Twelfth Night (2017), The Winter's Tale (2018), Romeo and Juliet (2017)
  • Literary adaptations: Frankenstein (2 performances, 2011), Jane Eyre (2015), Treasure Island (2015), Peter Pan (2017), Wonder.land (2015), Small Island (2019)
  • Greek classics: Antigone (2012), Medea (2014)
  • World historical drama: Dara (2015)

Volume 2

  • Turn of the century plays for contemporary audiences: Heda Gabler (2017), Julie (2018), The Seagull (2016), Three Sisters (2019)
  • 20th century classics: A view from the Bridge (2015), All My Sons(2019)
  • Contemporary plays: Barber Shop Chronicles (2017), This House(2013)
  • Shakespeare: Macbeth (2019)
  • Musical theatre: I want My Hat Back (2015)

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This project, conceived by the Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme, preserves and provides online access to the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in UK research libraries.

Selected by RLUK, the pamphlets provide a wide focus on the political, social, and economic issues of 19th century Britain. This project has captured as much as possible from a number of smaller collections associated with individuals or families (Durham, Liverpool, Newcastle and UCL) or organizations (Manchester), and supplemented these with pamphlets drawn from larger collections (Bristol and LSE).

Coverage: 19th Century.

 

Nineteenth Century Collections Online: The Corvey Collection of European Literature, 1790-1840

Access information:

Access on or off campus.

Description:

As part of the Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), this unique collection of monographs includes 7,717 works in English, 6,504 in French and 3,640 in German published in Britain and on the Continent during the Romantic period and the early Victoria era. Sourced from Castle Corvey in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the Corvey Collection is one of the most important collections of works from the period in existence, with particular strength in especially difficult-to-find or even previously unknown works – by women writers in particular. The collection’s vast archive of materials documents the nature and scope of literary publication in England and on the Continent during the Romantic period and the early years of the Victorian era. Scholars can research and explore a range of topics, including Romantic literary genres; mutual influences of British, French and German Romanticism; literary culture; women writers of the period; the canon and Romantic aesthetics.

Coverage:

1790-1840

 

Nineteenth Century Index

Access information: Available on and off campus
Description: C19 Index draws on the strength of established indexes such as the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (NSTC), The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index, Periodicals Index Online and the Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 1811–1849 to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.7 million books and official publications, 70,000 archival collections and 22.7 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers. C19 Index now provides integrated access to 13 bibliographic indexes, including more than three million records from British Periodicals Collections I and II, together with the expanded online edition of the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (DNCJ).

 

Nineteenth Century Literary Society - The John Murray Publishing Archive

Access information:

Access on and off campus

Description:

Nineteenth Century Literary Society offers unprecedented digital access to the peerless archive of the historic John Murray publishing company, and is an unparalleled resource for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.

Held by the National Library of Scotland since 2006 and added to the UNESCO Register of World Memory in 2011, the Murray collection comprises one of the world’s most important literary archives.

This digital resource enables researchers to discover the golden age of the company that published genre-defining titles including Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma, and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels

Key figures who feature in the Archive include, Jane Austen, Isabella Bird, Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Disraeli,  Elizabeth Eastlake, William Gladstone, David Livingstone, and Sir Walter Scott.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This includes Series 1 and 2 of a collection of digitised versions of key 19th century UK periodicals sourced from the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and other libraries.

Series 1: New Readerships: Women’s, Children’s, Humour and Leisure/Sport.

Series 2: Empire: Travel and Anthropology, Economics, Missionary & Colonial.

Coverage:

See the title lists below for full details of coverage.

 

 

North American Women's Drama, 2nd Edition

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: North American Women’s Drama brings these writings the attention they deserve, by publishing the full text of 1,500 plays written from Colonial times to the present by more than 100 women from the United States and Canada. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Almost a quarter of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays. Now for the first time, these plays can be studied, analyzed, and read with ease. Each play is extensively and deeply indexed, allowing both keyword and multi-fielded searching. The plays are accompanied by reference materials, significant ancillary information, a rich performance database, and associated resources. The result is an exceptionally deep and unified collection — to give voices to women, to represent women’s issues, to break stereotypes, to examine women’s views, to present women in various roles, and simply to entertain.

 

Norton Critical Editions Collection

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This is a curated collection of 49 essential classic texts (will increase to over 50 titles) in the e-book format of the traditional and authoritative Norton Critical Editions series. The titles are drawn from American Literature, 18th and 19th Century Literature, World Literature, Early Modern Drama, Short Stories and Poetry, and Religion and Epics. The texts are also accompanied with essays and other secondary readings, bibliographies and historical and contemporary analysis. All the individual titles are indexed and searchable by title or author in DiscoverEd.

Coverage: Title list from DiscoverEd.
Further Notes: You may wish to create a VitalSource Bookshelf account. To do this, follow the instructions on the initial login screen. If you do not want to create an account click the "No thanks, I'll skip this step" button and follow the on-screen instructions.

 

Orlando

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Orlando - "Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present" is a dynamic resource for the study of English literature, women's writing, and cultural history in general.

It consists of factual, critical, and interpreted material, with biographical and writing career entries on over 1,000 writers, more than 850 of them British women. It also includes selected non-British or international women writers, and British and international men, as well as more than thirty thousand dated items representing events and processes in a wide range of contexts such as history, science, medicine, economics and law.

 

Access information: Available on and off campus
Description:

Developed cooperatively with scholars worldwide, Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides. Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource guides researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.

Each subject area has an Editor in Chief, Editorial Board, and team of peer reviewers overseeing the development and updating of articles ensuring balanced perspective with scholarly accuracy and a robust updating program to keep researchers informed of advances in their field.

At the time of launch, each subject area includes approximately 50 articles; with an additional 50 to 75 articles added each year. New article topics are selected to ensure each subject area offers full and balanced coverage as determined by the Editor in Chief and Editorial Board, scholarly feedback, and research demand.

Coverage: The following modules are available to the University of Edinburgh - African American Studies, African Studies, American Literature, Anthropology, Biblical Studies, British and Irish Literature, Buddhism, Chinese Studies, Cinema & Media Studies, Classics, Criminology, Education, Hindu Studies, International Law, International Relations, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American, Linguistics, Literary and Critical Theory, Medieval Studies,  Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Renaissance & Reformation, Social Work, Sociology, Victorian Literature.  See http://oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/obo/page/subject-list for individual module title lists.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus
Description: OHO brings together the world’s leading scholars to discuss research and the latest thinking on a range of major topics. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship in a particular field of study, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. The articles review the key issues and major debates, and provide an original argument for how those debates might evolve.
Coverage:

The following subject collections are available to the University of Edinburgh - Archaeology, Business & Management, Classical Studies, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Economics & Finance (up to 2020), History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion and Sociology up to the end of 2021 copyright year.  If the chapters in these books have 2022 onwards updates, these will not be accessible. 

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: OSE provides full-text access to several hundred authoritative Oxford editions of major English works from the humanities written between 1485 and 1830. The subject coverage ranges from philosophy, literature, and theology, to economics, linguistics, and medicine, with a particularly rich collection in poetry, prose and drama including all of Shakespeare’s plays, the complete works of Jane Austen, the poetry of John Donne, and works by Adam Smith, David Hume and Jeremy Bentham.
Note: We do not have access to all OSE content, individual e-book records have been added to DiscoverEd. If you use the link above, please select the 'Only view full text results provided by University of Edinburgh' checkbox. This option is located in the left hand menu of the search results or browse results page.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description: Complete text of scholarly books published by Oxford University Press in the subject areas below.
Coverage: Archaeology, Biology, Business & Management, Chemistry, Classical Studies, Clinical Medicine and Allied Health, Computer and Information Science, Earth Sciences and Geography, Economics and Finance, Education, Environmental Science, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Mathematics, Music, Neuroscience, Palliative Care, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Public Health and Epidemiology, Religion, Social Work and Sociology. We have access to over 20,700 e-books.

 

PASCAL and FRANCIS bibliographic databases

Access information: Freely available
Description:

The site is an archive of the PASCAL and FRANCIS bibliographic databases in exact, human and social sciences, produced by Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (INIST-CNRS).

  FRANCIS indexes multilingual journal articles, books, dissertations, reports, and conferences related to humanities and social sciences topics, with particular emphasis on current trends in European and world literature. According to INIST-CNRS, FRANCIS is no longer being updated so as of January 1, 2017. The online content in the FRANCIS database is from 1972 to 2015.
  PASCAL offers bibliographic indexing of core scientific literature, and provides multidisciplinary and multilingual coverage for science, technology, and medicine with special emphasis on European content, also is no longer being updated. The online content in the INIST-CNRS PASCAL database is from 1984 to 2015.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Digital facsimiles of over 230 manuscripts written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sourced from 15 libraries and archives in the UK and North America.
  These early modern women authors were otherwise little known because their writing exists only in manuscript form. Manscript content includes works of poetry, drama, religious writing, autobiographical material, cookery and medical recipes, and accounts.
  Contains biographical and bibliographical resources, as well as contextual essays by academics working in the field.
Coverage: 16th -17th centuries.

 

Periodicals Archive Online via ProQuest

Periodicals Archive Online via Journal Archives

Access information: Access on and off-campus. The Library's ProQuest subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024 - NB applies to collections 6-10 only, collections 1-5 are purchased content.
Description:

An archival databases of digitised journal backfiles in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Periodicals Archive Online covers 37 subject categories, in a number of languages, and is divided into 10 collections:

  • Collection 1 contains 100 titles, such as: Sloan Management Review, History Today, Economic Studies and Music Journal.(P);
  • Collection 2 contains 100 titles, such as: Philosophy Today, RUSI, and Charities Review. (P);
  • Collection 3 contains 75 titles, such as: Harper's, Adolescence, American Jewish History. (P);
  • Collection 4 contains 75 titles, such as: Sight and Sound, Literature & History, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies.(P);
  • Collection 5 contains 75 titles, such as: Asian Perspectives, Criticism, Journal of Individual Psychology.(P);
  • Collection 6 contains 75 titles, such as: Philosophical Topics, Europe, and Comparative Drama. (S)
  • Collection 7 contains 61 titles, such as: Spectator, Dickens Quarterly, Islamic Quarterly. (S)
  • Collection 8 contains 69 titles, such as: New Statesman, Universitas, Psychiatry. (S)
  • Collection 9. (S)
  • Collection 10 contains 65 titles, such as: Maclean's, Queen's Quarterly, New Left Review, and Signal. (S)

Periodical Archive Online is a mix of purchased content, marked (P) above and subscribed content, marked (S) above.

Coverage: From journal first issue up to 2000.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: A database of journal articles citations in the arts, humanities and social sciences. covers 37 subject categories, in 44 languages and dialects.
Coverage: From journal first issue up to 1995.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Poetry & Short Story Reference Center is a rich full-text database containing thousands of classic and contemporary poems, short stories, biographies, essays, lesson plans and learning guides. It also includes high-quality videos and audio recordings from the Academy of American Poets.

 

ProQuest One Literature

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description:

ProQuest One Literature (PQOL) has superseded its previous version Literature Online. It contains all the content from core Literature Online plus all the content from LION Premium, plus literature content pulled from other ProQuest resources that we also subscribe to, including Historic Literary Criticism and African Writers Series, as well as the most relevant literary studies content curated from ProQuest Central, Academic Video Online, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, and Academic Complete.

PQOL contains 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, dissertations, and more than 500,000 primary works – including rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings. Enhanced by interpretive sources such as book reviews and criticism sourced from wider, interdisciplinary publications in the fields such as humanities and history, it provides diverse, global perspectives with sources from all over the world – Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America - the majority of which are in full-text. Newspaper book reviews will added in the future.

PQOL differs from LION also in its discipline-specific user experience, hand-keyed primary texts, the ABELL index, and a collection of author and literary movement pages, with more discipline user experience enhancements to come in the future as the product grows. PQOL is also a community-based  literary studies tool for scholars who must engage with an exhaustive and diverse set of scholarly resources around a given literary topic for research, teaching and learning. The database can be browed by literary period, literary movement, author name or literature collections.

Additional information: List of Literature Collections
User guide: http://proquest.libguides.com/pq1lit

 

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description:

Modern recordings help you bring Shakespeare to life in the classroom. The Royal Shakespeare Company Collection offers high-definition recordings of The Bard’s dramatic canon, featuring the world’s best Shakespearean actors and directors, along with supplemental teaching materials to help students engage more deeply with the material and enhance the overall learning experience.

 

The Shakespeare Collection

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

The Shakespeare Collection is a newly added resource (as of Nov 2020) within Gale Primary Sources – Archives Unbound which is also in Databases A-Z. The Collection contextualizes the legacy of this great poet and playwright, containing a selection of over 200 prompt books (annotated working texts of stage managers and company prompters) from the 17th to 20th centuries, the extensive diaries of Shakespeare enthusiast Gordon Crosse documenting 500 UK performances from 1890 to 1953, the First Folio and Quartos, editions and adaptations of Shakespeare’s works from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, more than 80 works Shakespeare is thought to have been familiar with, as well as works composed by Shakespeare's contemporaries. Containing 225 monographs and 764 manuscripts.

Coverage: 1517-1975

 

 

Shakespeare's Globe Archive

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

This collection of documents offers insights into the performance practice in the particular space of the reconstructed Globe Theatre. It details the way in which the theatre was constructed as a place of radical experiment. It documents over 200 performances through prompt books, wardrobe notes, programmes, publicity material, annual reports, show reports, photographs and architectural plans.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Theatre in Video contains more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video - more than 500 hours in all, representing hundreds of leading playwrights, actors and directors. This video resource is searchable by title, actor, playwright, and subject. It is also browsable by actor, director, playwright, genre, and dates. It is possible to bookmark specific scenes, monologues, and staging examples and then include those online links in learning and teaching material and in Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

 

Access information Access on and off campus. Access to the 2015-2019 supplement is on a trial basis until 12 July 2023.
Description The TLS weekly is the essential companion for studying and researching literary activity and critical opinion makers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since 1902, the TLS has scrutinized, applauded and dissected the work of leading writers and thinkers, offering comprehensive coverage of the most important publications, in every subject, in several languages, as well as reviewing current theatre, cinema, music, and exhibitions. The TLS Historical Archive offers the complete online fully-searchable edition from the first edition in 1902 up to 2011. It allows you to explore an archive of over 300,000 reviews, letters and poems, and to access previously unpublished, comprehensive biographical information about the contributors – many of whom originally wrote for the paper anonymously. Content from 2012 onwards can be searched and full text retrieved via FACTIVA, though this is no facsimile version for browsing. You can limit search in TLS only by selecting this publication within All Sources. Neither the historical archive nor the current content are covered by DiscoverEd search at the moment
Additional Information Supported browsers - also clear cache if having difficulties.  
Coverage: Content over 4 yrs old released on a monthly basis.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: Twentieth Century North American Drama contains 2,050+ plays from the United States and Canada. In addition to providing a comprehensive full-text resource for students in the performing arts, the collection offers a unique window into the economic, historical, social, and political psyche of two countries. Scholars and students who use the database will have a new way to study the signal events of the twentieth century—including the Depression, the role of women, the Cold War, and more—through the plays and performances of writers who lived through these decades.

 

Access information:

Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

Comics have become an increasingly popular area of academic study, and yet the typical library has only a small selection of graphic novels in the catalog. Underground and Independent Comics solves this problem, collecting thousands of comics—many extremely rare and hard to find—in one, easy-to-use online collection. Volume I covers major works from North America and Europe, beginning with the first underground comix from the 1950s and continuing through to modern sequential artists.  It incorporates 75,000 pages of material from artists such as Basil Wolverton and Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Harvey Pekar, Spain Rodriguez, and Vaughn Bode, and modern masters including Peter Bagge, Kim Deitch, Dave Sim, Dan Clowes, and Los Bros.  The collection contextualizes these original works with 25,000 pages of interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines, including The Comics Journal. Also included in this collection is The Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederick Wertham—the book that led to one of the largest censorship programs in US history—and the complete transcripts of the senate subcommittee hearings that birthed the Comics Code Authority and, inadvertently, the underground comix movement.

 

Access information:

Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

The second volume expands on the debut database by offering an additional 100,000 pages of important, rare, and hard-to-find works, scholarly writings, and more. It adds extensive coverage of the pre-Comics Code era of horror, crime, romance, and war comics that fueled the backlash leading to the advent of the Comics Code. Selections include works by visionaries such as Alex Toth, Boody Rogers, Fletcher Hanks, Steve Ditko, Joe Kubert, Bill Everett, Joe Simon, and Jack Kirby, along with essential series such as Crime Does Not Pay and Mister Mystery, and many others both famous and infamous. Volume II also contains tens of thousands of pages of non-mainstream, post-code comics and secondary materials from around the world, including the US, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, England, Sweden, Norway, Australia, Korea, Japan, and more. Notable titles include Essex County by Jeff Lemire, From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, 120 Days of Simon by Simon Gardenfors, Gen Manhwa by various artists, Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason, and God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and the Creation of Post-World War II Manga. Ancillary materials within Volume II render the collection ideal for students and researchers seeking a holistic perspective on the historical role of underground comics. Dozens of associated scholarly writings and commentaries add perspective and enrich understanding of the works and their cultural significance.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Victorian Popular Culture contains a wide range of source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. The resource is divided into four self-contained sections, covering: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema.
Coverage: 1779-1930

 

Access information:

Access on and off campus

Description: Wellesley is an index to the authorship of articles, and a bibliography of articles written by each contributor, and using each pseudonym. Citations of evidence are provided to support attributions of authorship, along with brief biographical and vocational details. 45 important monthly and quarterly titles are included, covering the period from the beginning of the Westminster Review in 1824 to the end of the century. The exception to this is the Edinburgh Review, which is indexed from first issue, in 1802. Wellesley does not index poetry.

 

Related Links