Research Guide: Advanced Literary Research
and Critical Theory

This guide is intended for graduate students who need to go beyond the resources listed in the Undergraduate Research Starting Points.  The guides in the first section, particularly Harner, will help identify further avenues for research.

Standard research guides

Balay, Robert. Guide to Reference Books (11^th ed.)  Ref Desk Z 1035.1.S43 1996

Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: an annotated listing of reference sources in English literary Studies  Ref PR83.H34 2002

Marcuse, Michael J. A Reference Guide for English Studies  Ref PR 56 .M37 1990

Miller, R.H. Handbook of Literary Research  Ref PR 56 .M54 1995

Handbooks on critical theory

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (online) also in Reference PN 81 .J64 2005

Harris, Wendell V. Dictionary of Concepts in Literary Criticism & Theory. Ref. PN 44.5 .H36 1992

Kowaleski-Wallace, Elizabeth.  Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory. Ref. PN98.W64 E53 1997 

Makaryk, Irene A., ed. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory. Ref. PN 81 .E63 1993

Orr, Leonard. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Ref. PN 44.5 .O77 1991

For books on subtopics, search MARQCAT using appropriate Library of Congress subject headings, e.g.

S>feminist literary criticism S>marxist criticism

S>postmodernism (literature) S>structuralism (literary analysis)

S>english literature—criticism, textual S>psychoanalysis and literature

Key bibliographic resources

Literature Online (LION) Among other components, this comprehensive literature resource contains the full contents of the MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) and the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), together presenting about 2 1/2 million citations (1920--) to scholarly books and articles, plus the complete text of over 200 scholarly critical journals.

Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (CBEL, aka NCBEL)  Ref. PR83 .N45 1999

Dissertations and Theses records for more than 2 million dissertations worldwide

Marquette dissertations are also available in digital form.

English Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC, at the British Library) listing works in English 1473-1800

World Shakespeare Bibliography

WorldCat (OCLC), national union catalog of more than 35 million items, giving library locations

Biographical approaches

Literature Online (LION) contains detailed biographies of over 17,000 authors of more than 100 nationalities

Dictionary of American Biography Ref E 176.D56

Dictionary of Literary Biography Ref PN451 .D535

American National Biography

Britannica Online

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also in Reference collection Ref DA 28.D57

Other online resources (See complete list)

19^th Century Masterfile Core is Poole’s Index, 1802-1906

American Periodical Series (APS) Indexing and digitized images for 1000+ American periodicals 1740-1900.

Arts & Humanities Index (ACHI) Indexes over 1300 international journals, including all references cited within the articles

Chicago Manual of Style Online

ISI Web of Knowledge, includes Arts & Humanities Citation Index

JSTOR 600 broadly interdisciplinary journals with complete online archive and search engine

New York Review of Books Complete online archive dating to first issue, 1963

Oxford English Dictionary; an online guide is available

Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) Full text archive of 350 journals in the humanities and social sciences

Times Literary Supplement online archive covering 1902-1990

Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900 (only)

Textbases (databases devoted to reproducing complete literary texts)

Early American Imprints, also known as Evans Bibliography (all American publications 1639-1800)

Early English Books Online (EEBO) Every work printed in England and British North America 1473-1700.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Several hundred thousand prominent works of the 18th C.

Everyday Life and Women in America 650 primary digital documents c.1820-1900

Women Writers Online (Brown U.) manuscripts dating from 1400-1850.

Wright American Fiction 1851-1875

Other public domain e-text collections

Key Web sites (see more at Libraries' Selected Internet Sites/English...

Voice of the Shuttle

Literary Resources on the Web (UPenn)

Locating Archives and Manuscripts

Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the U.S.  Ref. CD 3020 .D49 1988

British Archives  Ref. CD 1040 .F67 1995

WorldCat, using Advanced Search screen, limit search to "archival materials"

review potential library Web sites for descriptive inventories and finding aids

Marquette Libraries’ Department of Special Collections: finding aids

Services every graduate student should know about (and use)

Interlibrary Loan and ILL Direct

RefWorks, Web-based personal bibliography management database

Research Consultations and other AskUs! services

Accessing e-resources from off-campus

MARQCAT: online requesting; renewals; exporting records