Literatures in English: Online Literary Materials
Online Collections
This page lists online collections related to the study of English. The collections will include books, videos, photographs, documents, pamphlets, and many other formats. These collections will mostly include primary source collections. For other online resources you may want to refer to some of the other tabs above.
- Accessible Archives This link opens in a new windowThe Archives provides the full text of primary historical resources from the 18th and 19th century, including Godey's Ladys Book and the Pennsylvania Gazette. The Archives contains databases of major Civil war articles from newspapers at the time.
- American & English Literature Full CollectionThe American & English Literature Collection contains many works of poetry, drama, and prose based on books and other sources originally published in print. It also contains 21 historic editions of the Bible in English.
- American Film Scripts Online This link opens in a new windowContains 823 scripts by 969 writers. When it is complete there will be 1000 scripts. Most of them have never been published before and appear through arrangements with major film studios.
- American Periodicals This link opens in a new windowDigitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published between 1741 and 1900. American Periodical Series Online is a full-text collection of 1,500 American magazines published from 1741 into the 20th century. The database provides PDFs of page images and single articles. It can be browsed by title, editor, or publisher, and searched using a sophisticated search menu. The collection includes the first American magazines, early literary and cultural reviews, the first scholarly journals, and many popular magazines that continue to be published to this day, including Atlantic, Ladies' Home Journal, Vanity Fair, Puck, and Scientific American
This is a work-in-progress and is updated daily. For additional indexing use the 19th Century Index and Index to Early American Periodicals. The collection also is held in microfilm. - Asian American Drama This link opens in a new windowContains 252 full-text plays by 42 playwrights. In addition to well-known works, the collection includes items by emerging and less familiar playwrights.
- Black Drama 1850 to Present This link opens in a new windowContains approximately 1200 plays by 201 playwrights, together with related information on productions, theaters, and production companies.
- Black Short Fiction and Folklore This link opens in a new windowA full-text collection of short stories, fables, and folklore from African, African-American, and Caribbean authors.
- Drama Online This link opens in a new windowThe Bloomsbury Drama Online platform provides access to playtexts, video recordings of staged performances, critical and contextual writings, and practical guides to performance and dramaturgy. Supports research in theatre and literary studies. Includes a tools for discovering monologues and play texts that fit selected criteria. Coverage of Shakespeare and British theatre is especially strong. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.
- Early American Imprints: The Digital Evans This link opens in a new windowProvides the full text of most printed matter issued in the United States and Canada from 1639-1800, including books, pamphlets, and broadsides.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new windowDigital facsimile page images of virtually every work (books, pamphlets, broadsides, and other matter) printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowDigital images of every page of 150,000 English-language titles covering all subjects, published between 1701 and 1800 in the United Kingdom and the Americas (including foreign-language titles printed in the U.K.).
- Latin American Women Writers This link opens in a new windowProse, poetry and drama by Latin American women (from Mexico, Central America and South America) Latin American Women Writers contains full-text prose, poetry and drama by Latin American Women. Authors are from Mexico and South and Central America. Materials are in Spanish and Portuguese as well as French, Italian and English.
Dates of coverage: 17th century-present - Latino Literature This link opens in a new windowContains the full text of poetry, fiction, and drama written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latin authors working in the United States.
- LGBT Thought and Culture This link opens in a new windowAn online resource hosting the key works and archival documentation of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. The collection includes materials ranging from seminal texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and ephemera covering the political evolution of gay rights to memoirs, biographies, poetry, and works of fiction that illuminate the lives of lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual individuals and the community.
- Literature, culture and society in Depression era America: archives of the Federal Writers’ ProjectThis collection presents the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) publications of all 47 states involved in the project, which ran from 1933 to 1943. Forming the most complete collection of publications from all participating states, this archive contains more than 450 individual items, many of which are typed or mimeographed and received only limited circulation.
- New World Cinema: Independent Features & Shorts, 1990-present This link opens in a new windowThis collection includes approximately 200 full-length feature films from leading independent distributors such as Kino Lorber, First Run Features, Film Movement, MK2, and Global Lens. There are also some 50 award winning short films. All films were presented at major film festivals, many were nominated for awards, and many have won major awards. Films include the Oscar-nominated Twilight Samurai, directed by Yoji Yamada, Oscar-nominated The Scent of Green Papaya, directed by Tran Anh Hung, Oscar-nominated Dogtooth, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner The Piano Teacher, directed by Michael Haneke. Collectively the films in the database have won more than 1,000 awards.
- New York Times Historical This link opens in a new windowFull text of the complete run of the New York Times, 1851-three years ago. Full text of the complete run of New York Times from 1851 to three years ago, with page images, individual articles, ads, and illustrationss in downloadable PDF. It includes, and is searchable by, display and classified ads, cartoons, photos, maps, graphics, etc., editorials, obituaries, and commentary, as well as articles.
Dates of coverage: 1851-three years from the present.
Updated: Varies - North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new windowFull text of over 1,500 plays by more than 300 playwrights, beginning with colonial times and spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. A third of the plays have never been published before.
- Play Index This link opens in a new windowAn author, title, and subject index to 30,000 plays from antiquity to the present that have been published in the US since 1949. Play Index covers a wide range of plays written in or translated into English, including mysteries, pageants, plays in verse, puppet performances, radio and television plays, and classic drama. Search for plays by title; author; subject (sisters, culture conflict, marriage); style (symbolism, experimental theater); genre (comedy, melodrama, musical); cast type; and more. Play Index includes plays published as single volumes and also plays in anthologies and collections.
- Romantic Era Redefined This link opens in a new windowOnline collection of Romantic-era literature. It covers writers from Britain, the British Empire, and North America and includes over 170,000 pages of text. It has poetry, prose, drama, letters, and diaries—along with political, philosophical, scientific, and sociological works. The project includes the full run of The Wordsworth Circle and critical essays written by notable scholars.
Dates of coverage: 1800-1830 - Rotunda This link opens in a new windowCollections of 18th and 19th century texts/papers by significant Americans. Includes texts by Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, and Matthew Arnold. Consists of two broad collections of 18th and 19th century texts. The American Founding Era contains the papers of Dolly Madison and George Washington. The 19th-Century Literature and Culture collection includes papers from Kristina Rosetti, Matthew Arnold, Emily Shore, Herman Melville (text of his novel Typee), and an 19th century novel about slavery by a slave. Each database also contains supplemental and interpretive materials.
Dates of coverage: 18c.-19c.
Updated: New collections added. - Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new windowDigital images of books about the Americas published 1500-1926 and covering history, social and political issues, science, religion, slavery, immigration, women, and many, many other subjects.
- Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period This link opens in a new windowContains 60 volumes of Romantic Poetry, extensive contemporary critical reviews, as well as material specially written for this database by leading scholars.
- Short Story Index This link opens in a new windowShort Story Index is an essential resource for readers seeking short stories by author or genre, or for those researching a body of work of a literary figure. It provides detailed indexing for hundreds of thousands of short stories. This database is searchable by author, title, subject, keyword, date, literary technique and source, or by any combination of terms. Subject access including theme, locale, narrative technique, or device can narrow a search even further. Updated continuously.
- South and Southeast Asian Literature This link opens in a new windowA searchable full-text collection of fiction and poetry written in English by authors from South and Southeast Asia and their diasporas. Focusing on works composed during the late-colonial and post-colonial eras, the collection also features author interviews and manuscript materials that will shed additional light on the rich literary heritage and emerging traditions of this region.
- Times Digital Archive, 1785-2010 This link opens in a new windowComplete digital edition of The Times (London) including all articles, advertisements and illustrations, and photos.
- Twentieth Century Advice Literature This link opens in a new windowFull-text of handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate the standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. Titles include: "Official Preppy Handbook" and "Facts about Marriage Every Young Man & Woman Should Know" 1900-present
- Underground and Independent Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels This link opens in a new windowPrimary source database focusing on North American and European adult comic books and graphic novels. The collection includes original material from the 1960s to today along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines.
Historical Primary Sources Guide
- Historical Primary SourcesProvides information about indexes, collections, and archives. Explains how to find and analyze primary sources.
What is a primary source?
A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. Characteristically, primary sources are contemporary to the events and people described and show minimal or no mediation between the document/artifact and its creator. As to the format, primary source materials can be written and non-written, the latter including sound, picture, and artifact. Examples include:
- personal correspondence and diaries
- speeches and oral histories
- photographs and posters
- newspaper ads and stories
- audio and video recordings