These references sources are intended as a starting point for research, providing topic overviews, definitions, bibliographies, and other foundational information. More extensive studies of specific topics can be found using the online catalog.
General British Literature Resources
The Oxford Companion to English Literature by Call Number: PR19.O94ISBN: 9780192806871Publication Date: 2009-11-23Coverage of all aspects of English literature - from writers, their works, and the historical and cultural context in which they wrote, to critics, literary theory, allusions, and characters.
Medieval & Renaissance
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online (EEBO) features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700.
Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature by Call Number: 3rd Floor PN669 .E53 2000ISBN: 1849722447Publication Date: 2007-12-20
Encyclopedia of Renaissance Literature by Call Number: 3rd Floor PN721 .C66 2006ISBN: 0816056242Publication Date: 2005-11-01A comprehensive one-volume reference to the literary works, writers, and concepts of the Renaissance. Spanning the years from approximately 1500 to 1660 CE, this guide examines the history and development of literature as it flourished around the world during this period.
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature, 1100-1500 by Call Number: Books - 4th Floor PR255 .C34 2009ISBN: 9780521841672Publication Date: 2009-06-18
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing by Call Number: Books - 3rd Floor PN682 .W6 C36 2003ISBN: 052179188XPublication Date: 2003-05-22
Encyclopedia of the RenaissanceCall Number: 1st Floor - CB361 .E52 1999ISBN: 0684805146Publication Date: 1999-12-17
Shakespeare
- A new and complete concordance or verbal index to words, phrases, & passages in the dramatic works of Shakespeare : with a supplementary concordance to the poems by Call Number: 3rd Floor PR 2892.B38 1896Publication Date: 1896
Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary by Call Number: 3rd Floor PR2892 .S4 1971ISBN: 048622726XPublication Date: 1971-06-01Volume 1 of massive work by a leading Shakespeare scholar and lexicographer, a standard in the field, provides full definitions, locations, and shades of meaning in every word in Shakespeare's plays and poems. The 2 volumes contain more than 50,000 exact quotations, each precisely located. There is no other word dictionary comparable to this work.
19th Century - Romantic & Victorian
The Cambridge History of English Romantic Literature by Call Number: 3rd Floor PR146 .C335 2009ISBN: 9780521790079Publication Date: 2009-03-05Reflecting the most up-to-date research, the essays are designed both to provide a narrative of Romantic literature and to offer new and stimulating readings of the key texts.
The Cambridge History of Victorian Literature by Call Number: 3rd Floor PR461 .C364 2012ISBN: 9780521846257Publication Date: 2012-03-01This collaborative History aims to become the standard work on Victorian literature for the twenty-first century. Well-known scholars introduce readers to their particular fields, discuss influential critical debates and offer illuminating contextual detail to situate authors and works in their wider cultural and historical contexts.
20th Century
The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature by Call Number: 3rd Floor PR471 .C36 2004ISBN: 0521820774Publication Date: 2005-01-06This Cambridge History is the first major history of twentieth-century English literature to cover the full range of writing in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Scottish Literature by Call Number: 3rd Floor PR8553 .E35 2009ISBN: 9780748636938Publication Date: 2009-07-03This volume considers the major themes, texts and authors of Scottish literature of the twentieth and, so far, twenty-first century. It identifies the contexts and impulses that led Scottish writers to adopt their creative literary strategies. Moving beyond traditional classifications, it draws on the most recent critical approaches to open up new perspectives on Scottish literature since 1900. The volume's innovative thematic structure ensures that the most important texts or authors are seen from different perspectives whether in the context of empire, renaissance, war and post-war, literary genre, generation, and resistance. In order to provide thorough coverage, these thematic chapters are complemented by chronological 'Arcade' chapters, which outline the contexts of the literature of the period by decades, and by 'Overview' chapters which trace developments across the century in theatre, language and Gaelic literature. Taken together, the chapters provide a thorough and thought-provoking account of the century's literature.
