Literature Resources on the Web

The sources listed below represent some of the best current sources for literature. They contain numerous links to other websites which feature various aspects of the literary world.

Indexes and Abstracts
General Sources
English Literature
American Literature
Electronic Literature Journals
Theater
Individual Authors
European Literature

Indexes and Abstracts

General Sources

The Academy of American Poets -- Provides information of the goals of the Academy, membership requirements, American events and literary exhibits which are mini-anthologies. Exhibits are in two groups: historical exhibits (modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, British influences, etc.) and curated thematic exhibits (poems of work, poems of love, etc.)
Alex, A Catalog of Electronic Texts on the Internet -- This collection of digital documents may be searched, displayed and downloaded. The scope of documents in the collection include items from American literature, English literature, and Western philosophy. Provides links to other electronic text collections.
ASLE Online -- This is the website for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, and it offers a wealth of material, including several online publications, calls for papers, conference proceedings, job listings, and useful links to other relevant websites. This is a must-visit site for students and researchers involved in the study of literature and the environment as they relate to each other.
Bestseller Lists, 1900-1995 -- Publisher's Weekly's list of bestselling hardcover book for the entire country (years 1996 to 1998 are included).
Book Lovers: Fine Books & Literature -- Selection of useful places on the net on writers and poets, on libraries, publishers and booksellers, both of new and second hand-antiquarian books.
Book Review Digest -- Provides access to reviews of current English-language fiction and nonfiction books from approximately 100 leading periodicals published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain dated 1983 to the present. (ISU users only)
Books in Print (FirstSearch) -- The Books In Print database provides access to more than 1.8 million fiction and non-fiction books an all topics. Updated weekly, it lists in-print, out-of-print, and forthcoming books from more than 44,000 North American publishers.
BookWire Mailing List Index -- Collection of literature-oriented listserves with instructions for subscribing.
Cambridge History of English and American Literature
Celebration of Women Writers -- Provides links to web resources by and about women writers, past and present.
Childrens's Catalog -- Children's Catalog is the electronic version of Wilson's standard reference work of the same name. Children's Catalog is a selective annotated list of fiction and nonfiction books and magazines for children from preschool through sixth grade, along with review sources and other professional aids for children's librarians and school media specialists. Nonfiction works are classified by subject according to the Dewey Decimal Classification. Works of fiction, story collections, and picture books are designated Fic, S C, and E. (ISU campus only)
Comics.com! -- Comic strips appear on the web a week after they appear in print in the newspaper. A four week archive is maintained. Search by strip name and by date it appeared in print. Provides information about the strip, products for sale and how to e-mail or purchase a strip.
Digital Dante -- Library of Dante's works (including the Divina commedia in Italian and two English translations), related scholarly works, and resources for teaching and research.
Early English Books Online -- This product provides online facsimile reproductions of all the works listed in the Short-Title Catalogue, and the Thomason Tracts broadsides. There are over 96,000 titles ranging in time from 1475-1700, previously only accessible via microfilm. Original printings of Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare's quartos are available as PDF files, as well as works by such early authors as Malory, Erasmus, Newton, and Aphra Behn. EEBO is searchable by author, title, printer, date of publication, and type of illustration.
The Electronic Beowulf Project -- Describes the project to assemble a database of digital images of the Beowulf manuscript, and related manuscripts and printed texts.
Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts -- A collection of about eight hundred full text folk tales and myths. Includes links to other web sites for folk and fairy tales and Germanic myths, legends, and sagas.
Gender Inn: Women's and Gender Studies Database -- A searchable database providing access to over 5,000 records pertaining to feminist theory, feminist literary criticism and gender studies focusing on English and American literature.
Great Books -- This list of great authors and their works is compiled from a variety of sources and based on the print title, Great books of the western world. Includes online links to each author's biography. Highlighted works are linked to an online site hosting the text in some form.
Guide to Grammar and Writing -- A collection of grammar rules and log of frequently asked grammar questions and answers. An online form is provided for submitting questions about English usage or grammar. Samples (in .pdf format) of business letters, memos, application letters, thank-you letters, resumes, etc. are included.
Humanities Text Initiative -- Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) is an umbrella organization for the acquisition, creation, and maintenance of electronic texts. Provides access to a variety of reference and humanities resources. Access to some titles may be restricted.
Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections -- An index English language science fiction anthologies and collections of stories by one author. This edition combines the information from two earlier books, Index to science fiction anthologies and collections and Index to science fiction anthologies and collections: 1977-1983, incorporating many enhancements, corrections and additions.
The Internet Public Library Online Literary Criticism Collection -- Contains critical and biographical websites about British and American authors and their works that can be browsed by author, title or literary period.
Inter-play: An On-line Index to Plays in Collections, Anthologies and Periodicals -- Provides access to the locations of printed plays in collections, anthologies and periodicals. Sources indexed range from late 19th century to the current year.
Karla's Guide to Citation Style Guides -- An annotated collection of links to the best and most up-to-date citation guides that show how to properly cite resources from the Internet. Style guides for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, BSE, styles and a description of how to cite references from Lexis/Nexis.
Literary Resources on the Net -- A collection of links to sites on the Internet dealing with English and American literature, excluding single electronic texts, and limited to collection of information useful to academics.
The Literary Web: New Dimensions in Literature -- A hypermedia guide to literary resources (fiction and poetry) available on the World Wide Web.
LitLinks: Literary Links on the Web -- Selective list of literary links on the Web, including listservs and newgroups.
Major Online Text Collections -- Links to sites that contain electronic text collections. Organized according to language and/or subject. There are also references to specific texts, in particular for unusual languages and unusual texts. Subjects covered include manuscript and medieval studies, philosophy, religion, and women and gender studies.
The On-Line Books Page -- Index to English language on-line books in various formats with a search engine; links to repositories of on-line books (including those of a specialty or foreign language) and other documents.
Oxford Text Archive -- Based within the Humanities Computing Unit of Oxford University Computing Services, The Oxford Text Archive holds several thousand electronic texts and linguistic corpora, in a variety of languages. Its holdings include electronic editions of works by individual authors, standard reference works such as the Bible and mono-/bilingual dictionaries, and a range of language corpora.
Poetry Society of America -- The Society's home page includes membership information, calendar of events, awards, features from the PSA Journal online, links to individual poet pages and related sites.
Project Gutenberg : Official and Original Project Gutenberg Web Site and Home Page -- A major source for electronic texts.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database -- This is a fully searchable database that contains bibliographic citations to over 51,000 articles, essays and other critical and non-critical writings on science fiction, fantasy and horror. N.B.: It does not contain book reviews.
The SF-Lovers Reference Library -- Collection of links to science fiction resources which include other archives and resource guides, authors, art and artists, bibliographies, movies, television, bookstores, book reviews, role-playing games, zines, etc.
The University of Virginia Electronic Text Library -- Archive of electronic texts with file size and table of contents included for each text; provides links to other electronic text sites.
Voices From the Gaps -- a World Wide Web project that focuses on the lives and works of women writers of color in North America. Each author page presents biographical, critical and bibliographical information about the writer as well as images and quotes pertinent to her life and works. Each page includes, in addition, links to other resources on the World Wide Web which contain significant information about that writer. Author pages are organized along a set of four indices: by name, place of birth, significant dates, and ethnic/racial identity, such as African-American, Asian-American, etc.
Yahoo: Arts, Humanities, Literature -- Links to Internet sites related to literature; with search engine.

English Literature

British Women Romantic Poets, 1789-1832 -- Electronic texts from the University of California, Davis.
Collected Works of Shakespeare -- Complete texts of the works in HTML; includes a search engine and links to other Shakespeare sites.
G.K. Chesterton: the Colossal Genius -- List of links to resources by and about G.K. Chesterton.
The Gothic: Materials for Study -- Web page designed and maintained by Christine Ruotola, Ami Berger, Liz DeGaynor, Zach Munzenrider, and Amanda French offers a compilation of writings selected as examples of classic Gothic literature. Accompanying the textual portions are critical, historical and bibliographical information composed by the web site's authors.
Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet -- "This site attempts two things: To be a complete annotated guide to the scholarly Shakespeare resources available on Internet ... and to present new Shakespeare material unavailable elsewhere on the Internet."--Opening screen.
Romantic Circles -- Website devoted to early 19th century English literature and culture.
Shakespeare -- Provides links to free catalogs, Shakespeare-related sites across the web, and curriculum materials on Shakespeare.
Shakespeare in Connotations -- A list of more than fifty articles, examining Shakespeare's words, that have appeared in Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate. Grouped under headings of individual plays, many of these articles are full-text.
Victorian Studies on the Web : an Indispensable Source of Information on Every Important Publication from 1945-1999 on Every Field of Victorian Studies -- Web site contains free access to lists of recent books, articles, announcements and Web sites related to Victorian studies.
Victorian Women Writers Project -- Provides SGML-encoded transcriptions of literary works by British women writers in the late Victorian period, including anthologies, broadsides, and volumes of poetry and verse drama.
The William Blake Archive : A Hypermedia Archive -- Electronic archive based on the illuminated books of William Blake, heavily supplemented by his paintings, drawings, and engravings.
Women Romantic-Era Writers -- Texts by women of the Romantic period.

American Literature

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century -- Digitized resources from the New York Public Library.
American Verse Project -- Assembles an electronic archive of already-published volumes of American poetry prior to 1920, without any additional critical materials. The selection includes a number of works by African-American and women poets.
F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary -- Celebrates Fitzgerald's writings, life, and relationship with other writers of the twentieth century. This site draws extensively on books, photographs, and related materials from the Matthew J. and Arlyn Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina; includes a search engine.
James Fenimore Cooper Society -- This web site is a comprehensive resource for James Fenimore Cooper scholars and appreciators. It contains a bibliography of Cooper's publications, full-text editions of some of his works, a collection of full-text articles and papers about Cooper, biographical information and more.
The Literature & Culture of the American 1950s -- Provides links to a reading list and research tools for studying the American 1950s.
Mark Twain from the Mining Company -- A comprehensive collection of links to online resources on the life, times and writings of Mark Twain.
Outline of American Literature -- History of American literature from pre-Colonial days to current times with brief biographies of authors representative of the period. Provides links to key internet sites on American literature.
The Psychedelic '60s: Literary Tradition and Social Change -- Catalog of an exhibition of items from the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature and the Marvin Tatus Collection of Contemporary Literature and shown at the Tracy W. McGregor Room of the Alderman Library, April 1 though September 15, 1998.
Welcome to the Hemingway Resource Center -- A list of works by and about Ernest Hemingway.
William Faulkner on the Web: William Faulkner, American writer 1897-1962 -- A guide to the life and work of William Faulkner.

Electronic Literature Journals

Callaloo -- A journal of African-American and African arts and literature, publishing original works by and critical studies of Black writers worldwide. The journal offers a mixture of fiction, poetry, plays, critical essays, cultural studies, interviews, and visual art.
Configurations -- Journal devoted to the study of discourse pertaining to the theories and practices of science, technology, and medicine; explores the relationships of literature and the arts to the sciences and technology.
Diacritics -- Forum for scholars writing on the problems of literary criticism.
Early Modern Literary Studies -- Refereed journal containing articles, responses to papers, and book reviews. Scope extends to literature, language and literary culture during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Eighteenth-century Studies -- Journal dealing with all aspects of eighteenth-century culture.
ELH : English Literary History -- Journal publishing studies that interpret the conditions affecting major works in English and American literature.
The Ever Reader -- Contains full text of articles published in the Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter as well as other publications of the Shakespeare Oxford Society, both reprints and first-time articles.
Henry James Review -- Journal containing contemporary scholarly, critical, and theoretical works on James.
How2 -- How2 contains poetry and critical discourse concerning innovative poetry written by women. The How2 website also contains a digital archive of the complete run of its predecessor, How(ever).
How(ever) -- How(ever) was a journal that provided a forum for innovative women writers. It was published between 1983 and 1992 and the spirit and purpose of the publication was rekindled in 1999 by the online journal How2. All the paper issues of How(ever) have been digitized and are archived on the electronic journal How2's website.
Literature and Medicine -- Journal provides complete coverage of the medical humanities.
Mississippi Review -- A Web-specific version of the magazine Mississippi Review--a separate publication serving as an outlet for online fiction, poetry, essays, graphics, sound, video, and similar material.
MLN: Modern Language Notes -- Each issue is devoted to a topic in a particular field: Italian, Hispanic, German, French and comparative literature.
Modern Fiction Studies -- Journal publishes quality articles on prominent works of modern and contemporary literature of the twentieth century. The journal emphasizes theoretical, historical, interdisciplinary, and cultural approaches to narrative.
New Literary History -- Journal focuses on theory and interpretation - the reasons for literary change, the definitions of periods, and the evolution of styles, conventions, and genres.
Performing Arts Journal -- Journal offers extended coverage of video, installations, and photography, in addition to theatre, dance, film, and opera. Issues include essays, artists' writings, interviews, texts, reports on performances abroad, and book reviews.
Philosophy and Literature -- Journal explores the dialogue between literary and theoretical studies and philosophy. It includes articles in the aesthetics of literature, theory of criticism, philosophical interpretation of literature, and literary treatment of philosophy.
Theatre Journal -- Journal features social and historical studies, production reviews, and theoretical inquiries that analyze dramatic texts and production.
Theatre Topics -- The first theatre publication devoted to issues of concern to practitioners, focuses on performance studies, dramaturgy, and theatre pedagogy. Concise and timely articles on a broad array of practical, performance-oriented subjects, as well as a comments section on current topics.
Yale Journal of Criticism -- Journal publishes works of interest to readers in the humanities, irrespective of field or period, including scholarly articles, original art, review essays, polemical interventions, and conference and symposium papers. Experimental and performative material in critical genres such as memoir, confession, and fable have also been featured.

Theater

Inter-play: An On-line Index to Plays in Collections, Anthologies and Periodicals -- Provides access to the locations of printed plays in collections, anthologies and periodicals. Sources indexed range from late 19th century to the current year.

Individual Authors

In addition to authors listed below, an excellent gathering of author webpages can be found at Bohemian Ink -- A collection of links to American, British, and other European writers.
Not included in the Bohemian Ink page is the well-known British author Jane Austen. Her page can be found at Jane Austen Information Page -- Includes works, biography, criticism, and annotated text of Jane Austen. Provides links through characters and chronology, among others.

European Literature

ARTFL Project, University of Chicago: Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language -- A full-text retrieval database of classical French writings, including literary works, political tracts, philosophical writings, and technical treatises. Site also includes bibliographies and information about the project.
Digital Dante -- Library of Dante's works (including the Divina commedia in Italian and two English translations), related scholarly works, and resources for teaching and research.
Electronic Text Collections in Western European Literature -- Provides links to Internet sources for literary texts in the Western European languages other than English.
Lire les Femmes Ecrivains et les Litteratures Africaines -- Wide-ranging site focusing on women writers of French-speaking, sub-Saharan Africa. Includes biographical information, texts, bibliographies, interviews, links to related sites, and a search engine.

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Literature Resources on the Web