Print Resources

The University Library's Reference Collection contains a number of specialized guides, dictionaries and encyclopedias devoted to British, American and other English-language literatures. Some of the most useful are listed below.

Biographical Dictionaries & Guides

Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1978--. A set of volumes, currently over 200 in number, organized by topics and genres which includes essays about various writers and their work. Covers American, British and some other English-speaking areas, as well as other European national literatures. Examples of volume titles include: American Screenwriters, Poets of Great Britain and Ireland Since 1960, American Short Story Writers Before 1880, British Novelists Since 1960, and The American Renaissance in New England (which has the distinction of being Volume 1). Each volume includes a cumulative index.
Reference Collection PS 21 .D5

British Writers. New York: Scribner, 1987--.
Reference Collection PR 85 .B688

American Writers. New York: Scribner, 1974--.
Reference Collection PS 129 .A55

American Women Writers. New York: Ungar, 1979--.
Reference Collection PS 147 .A4

Black Writers. Detroit: Gale, 1989.
Reference Collection PS 153 .N5 B57

Encyclopedias & Guides

This is a listing of various guides to some of the different national literatures written in English. Other similar guides available in the Reference Collection, as are guides devoted to particular genres.

Reference Guide to American Literature. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994.
Reference Collection PS 129 .R44

Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
Reference Collection PS 153 .N5 O96

Native American Literatures. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1999.
Reference Collection PS 153 .I52 W47

The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993.
Reference Collection PR85 .C29 1993

Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. London: Routledge, 1994.
Reference Collection PR 9080 .A52 E53

Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997.
Reference Collection PR 9180.2 .O93

Literary Criticism

Harris, Wendell V. Dictionary of Concepts in Literary Criticism and Theory. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Reference Collection PN41 .H36 1992

The following volumes from Gale provide excerpts or reprints of published critical articles. Check the cumulative index of a recent volume to find which previous volumes may also be useful. These are indexed by author names and titles of works.

Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1988 --.
Reference Collection PN610 .C53

Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Detroit: Gale, 1984 -- .
Reference Collection PN86 .L56

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1982 --.
Reference Collection PN761 .N5

Contemporary Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1973 --.
Reference Collection PN771 .C59

Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1978 --.
Reference Collection PN771 .G27

Poetry Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1991 --.
Reference Collection PN1010 .P499

Drama Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1991 --.
Reference Collection PN1601 .D59

Short Story Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1988--.
Reference Collection PN3373 .S56

Shakespearean Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1984--.
Reference Collection PR2965 .S44

Black Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1992.
Reference Collection PS153.N5 B556 1992

Hispanic Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1994.
Supplement, 1999.
Reference Collection PQ7081.A1 H573 1994
Reference Collection PQ7081.A1 H5732 1999

Journals and Books

Journals and magazines held by the UMass Dartmouth Library are shelved alphabetically by title on the 3rd floor of the library. For complete information about library journal holdings, please check the Voyager online catalog or the SMCL (Southeastern Massachusetts Cooperating Libraries) Union List of Serials (available at the Reference Desk). Use the UMD Journal Locator to determine whether we have the journal you need in an electronic version.

For finding citations to specific journals which cover various literary topics, use the E-Resources, described below.

To locate books by or about a particular author, use the Voyager online catalog. Hints: to locate all the items UMD owns written by an author, use the author search function, typing in the author's name, last name first. To locate items written about an author, use the subject search function, also using the author's name, last name first. Typically, this will retrieve a list of items categorized by subheadings, such as --Biography or --Criticism and Interpretation.

If Voyager indicates that UMD does not own a particular book or journal, UMD students, staff and faculty are welcome to request the item via InterLibrary Loan.

Electronic Collections

The University Library provides access to a number of databases for the use of the University community.

While many general databases may offer access to articles and book reviews for contemporary writers, there are several specialized indexing databases for literary research. For finding citations to journal articles, use:

MLA International Bibliography covers topics including all languages, literatures, literary criticism, linguistics, film studies and folklore. Citations are included for U.S. journals, international journals and U.S. dissertations.

Humanities Index also includes coverage of literature, including citations for articles about authors, genres, periods and specific works.

For contemporary authors (defined by these databases as those active since the 1960s), UMD provides online access to Gale Publishing's Contemporary Authors and Contemporary Literary Criticism.

These two items are electronic versions of the reference books noted above, providing access to biographical essays and full-text articles originally published in various literary journals. For critical essays about writers from earlier eras, please see the print versions of the rest of the Gale series (e.g., Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism or Shakespearean Criticism).

Feel free to ask for further advice on selecting databases at the reference desk or contact the Literature & Languages Librarian.

Internet Resources

General Information and Collections of Links

In addition to materials held by the Library, the Library provides users access to resources on the Internet. The following list contains links to a sampling of web sites that are available. These include research guides, full-text electronic archives, and informational pages from various centers and organizations. Many more web sites are certainly available; these are just a few that have proven useful to previous researchers. Be sure to evaluate carefully when you find other web sites through commercial search engines.

• Literary Resources on the Net
• The Cambridge History of English and American Literature - a classic encyclopedia, all 18 volumes now available online at Bartleby.com
• American and English Literature Internet Resources - maintained by librarians at Southern Connecticut State University
• English Literature - a collection of links from About.com
• American Literature - a collection of links from About.com
• Project Gutenberg - collection of free, online, full-text classics of literature
• Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide - maintained by Paul P. Reuben