Henry Buhl Library: E-Books & Online Books: Literature

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Literature eBooks & Online Books

eBooks
Online Books Freely Available

Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
Considered the authority on the English language, offers meaning, history, and pronunciation on over 500,000 English words and phrases.

Oxford Reference Online Database -- Literature
Access to a collection of online dictionaries and encyclopedias related to literature.

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online (Gale Literature) This link opens in a new window
Signed essays written by scholars provide essential context for understanding the careers and writings of more than 12,000 authors from all time periods and from all parts of the world.
Scribner Writer Series (Gale Literature) This link opens in a new window
Includes biographical and critical essays on the lives and works of more than 1,400 authors from around the world. Entries include concise essays, citations, and biographical information, placing the author's work in personal and historical context.
Twayne's Authors Series (Gale Literature) This link opens in a new window
eBook series of 800+ volumes covering the lives, works, and importance of writers from around the world.

American Poets and Poetry: From the Colonial Era to the Present
This encyclopedia covers U.S. poetry from the Colonial era to the present, and includes entries on hundreds of poets of the American canon.

Bloom's Literature This link opens in a new window
Provides biography and criticism on hundreds of authors curated by world-renowned literary critic Harold Bloom.
Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics This link opens in a new window
eBook collection offering thousands of essays on major literary authors, periods, and genres.
EBSCO eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
Access to over 200,000 full text eBooks across a variety of subjects.

The Encyclopedia of British Literature 1660-1789
Provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of the poetry, drama, fiction, and literary and cultural criticism produced from the Restoration of the English monarchy to the onset of the French Revolution.
The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature
Presents comprehensive coverage of all aspects of English literature produced from the early 16th to the mid 17th centuries.
The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory
Provides explanations of complex terms and important theoretical concepts, as well as summaries of the work and ideas of key figures.
The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies
Brings together the most wide-ranging and up-to-date scholarship ever assembled on the colonial, postcolonial and neo-colonial condition, covering the period from 1492 to the present.
The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature
Authoritative reference work that covers British artistic, literary, and intellectual movements between 1780 and 1830, within the context of European, transatlantic and colonial historical and cultural interaction.
The Encyclopedia of the Gothic
Features a series of newly-commissioned essays from experts in Gothic studies that cover all aspects of the Gothic as it is currently taught and researched, along with the development of the genre and its impact on contemporary culture.
The Encyclopedia of the Novel
Provides authoritative accounts of the history, terminology, genre, and theory of the novel.
The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction
Offers an indispensable reference guide to twentieth-century fiction in the English-language.
The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature
Spans the full sweep of literary genres and figures that define this influential period, combining accessibility with an unmatched breadth of coverage and authoritative scholarship.

Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window
The digital version of all Loeb volumes, searchable by author, subject, or series number. New volumes are added when published.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts
Covers the cultural history of biblical texts, themes, characters, images, and the Bible itself in the literary, visual, and musical arts.
The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan
The most extensive volume of original essays ever published on the seventeenth-century Nonconformist preacher and writer.
The Oxford Handbook of Jonathan Edwards
An authoritative overview of Edwards' life, ministry, and writings, as well as a representative sampling of cutting-edge scholarship on Edwards from across several disciplines.
The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Fiction
Presents authoritative essays by thirty-five distinguished scholars of Irish fiction.

Cambridge Histories Online This link opens in a new window
eBook series of 400+ volumes spanning subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, especially political and cultural history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, music, and the arts.
Salem Literature Online This link opens in a new window
eBook collection supporting literary studies, including the Critical Insights series focused on individual authors, works, and themes.

American Literature

American Verse Project
"The project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920."
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
"A digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. From The Schomburg Center (NYPL).
Wright American Fiction
"This is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875" (from Indiana University Digital Library Program).
The Walt Whitman Archive
"an electronic research and teaching tool that sets out to make Whitman's vast work, for the first time, easily and conveniently accessible to scholars, students, and general readers."

British Literature

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery
Part of the University of Wisconsin's Digital Collections.
Complete Works of William Shakespeare--the Plays
Searchable database of Shakespeare's plays. Titles arranged in categories of Comedy, History, Tragedy, and Poetry. Also includes Shakespearean quotes from Bartlett's Quotations.
Shakespeare's Sonnets
"The heart of this site is the (keyed in) full texts of all Shakespeare's sonnets from Thomas Thorpe's 1609 edition. But the site also provides commentary on the sonnets" ... and more.
Victorian Women Writers Project
Works by British women writers of the 19th century.

General Literature

University of Virginia's E-Book Library (VIRGO)
1,800 publicly-available e-books including classic British and American fiction, major authors, children's literature, the Bible, Shakespeare, American history, African-American documents, and much more.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
Provides "the means to access, read, and analyze sets of digitized books, journal articles loosly surrounding the topics of American literature, English literature, and Western philosophy."
Bartleby.com
Bartleby.com publishes thousands of free online classics of reference, literature and nonfiction.
Humanities Text initiative: Modern English Collection
Provides search and browse features for a collection of modern English texts (from University of Michigan).
A Celebration of Women Writers
Provides links to biographies and bibliographies of women writers.