Library Guides: English Library Guide: Background

Reference Sources for Background Information

Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Addresses all facets of literary study, including biographical, bibliographical, critical, and contextual information on authors and their works. LRC includes access to the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Twayne's Authors Series, and Scribner Writers Series.
Literature Online Full Text - LION This link opens in a new window
Leading online resource for literature in English. Includes texts of over 355,000 literary works, as well as key criticism and reference resources. Includes a growing library of full-text journals and author biographies. Includes access to ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature).
Dictionary of Literary Biography This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 16,000 biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.
Biography & Genealogy Master Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes current reference sources and retrospective works that cover individuals, both living and deceased, from nearly every field of activity.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
Biography in Context This link opens in a new window

Cambridge Companions Online This link opens in a new window
This database offers subject or theme based collections of content within a richly functional, fully cross-searchable online environment. The Complete Cambridge Companions is available as a complete collection and as two sub-collections comprising the Cambridge Companions in Literature and Classics and the Cambridge Companions in Philosophy, Religion and Culture. Each collection is updated with new Companions on publication.
Contemporary Authors This link opens in a new window
Now part of the Gale Literature Resource Center, this resource contains biographical information on modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters in the award-winning Contemporary Authors series. Sketches typically include personal information, addresses, career history, writings, work in progress, biographical/critical sources and authors' comments and/or informative essays about their lives and work.
Dictionary of Literary Biography This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 16,000 biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.
Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism This link opens in a new window
A full-text searchable database of articles on individual critics and theorists, critical and theoretical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. Includes selective primary and secondary bibliography.
Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
Includes: Classical & Medieval Literature Criticism, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Criticism 1400 - 1800, Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism, Shakespearean Literature Criticism.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature This link opens in a new window
Substantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature combines the speed and flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing to attempt to map literary expressions and criticism across the various fields and approaches that make up literature in its broadest sense.

Twayne's Authors Series
Twayne's is devoted to in-depth critical introductions to the lives and works of major writers of the world within the context of the time period in which they lived. It provides insightful and original commentary on the history and influence of literary movements.

Bloomsbury Medieval Studies This link opens in a new window
Bloomsbury Medieval Studies brings together high-quality secondary content and visual primary sources for the study of all world regions from c. 300-1500.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Explore a wealth of facts, figures, definitions, background information, and translations found in dictionaries and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.

Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive (TLS) This link opens in a new window

New York Review of Books

CHOICE Reviews Online This link opens in a new window

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) This link opens in a new window
Widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language, this descriptive dictionary traces the historical development of the language.

Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics

Lexicons of Early Modern English (LEME) This link opens in a new window

Middle English Compendium

Middle English Dictionary by Robert E. Lewis (Editor); Marilyn S. Miller (As told to); Mary Jane Williams (Contribution by)
Call Number: PE679 .M54 2007 Suppl. - 2nd Floor
ISBN: 9780472013104
Publication Date: 2007
New edition of the Plan is a complete reshaping and rewriting of Kurt's original (1954), with an up-to-date history of the project and a comprehensive guide to the entries and their constituent parts. The Bibliography contains all of the items used in the print dictionary, combining the original Bibliography, the supplement published in 1985, and the additions made between 1985 and 2001, when the last fascicle was published, and amounts to some 5,400 items, including over twenty-five percent again as many as in the original, with notes on date and title changes and where they occurred in the dictionary.

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Brainstorm. Identify related issues, people, or events.
List what you already know and what you need or want to know.
Determine what perspective will you take.
Determine a geographic region and/or time period on which to focus.

Do preliminary reading or background research. Reference materials like encyclopedias provide background information, help you discover important authors and titles in your field, and learn the vocabulary you need to find additional resources.

Academic research is a process with many steps and is almost never linear. You will often go back to earlier steps as you read, write, and ask new questions.