Henry Buhl Library: E-Books & Online Books: Modern Languages

Modern Languages eBooks & Online Books

World Language, Literature, & Culture Resources:

Language Resources

Oxford Reference Online Database -- Bilingual Dictionaries
Search and access French-English, English-French, Spanish-English, English-Spanish, German-English, English-German, and other foreign language bilingual dictionaries.

Literature Resources

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online (Gale Literature)
The Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online from Gale Literature provides authoritative information while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history. 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)
The Scribner’s Writers Series 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)
Author-focused volumes of literary criticism offering in-depth introductions to the lives and works of writers, the history and influence of literary movements and to the development of literary genres. (Gale Literature)
Salem Literature Online
Contains "the Critical Insights" series, which focuses on an individual author’s entire body of work or on a single work of literature.
EBSCO eBook Collection
"This growing subscription package contains a large selection of multidisciplinary eBook titles representing a broad range of academic subject matter." Subjects covered include business, education, literary criticism, philosophy, political science, religion, engineering, and others. New titles are added monthly.
Books can be read online or downloaded onto another device. Portions of books can be printed.

The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies
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.
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. Each text on this list can be accessed in HTML (web version) for online viewing, and can be downloaded as both a MS Reader E-book for the Microsoft Reader and a Palm-readable text for the Palm Reader. The catalog is browsable by subject and title.

Culture Resources

Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America
This work includes 23 new ethnic groups and contains 152 revised ethnic entries on specific minority groups in the U.S., with an emphasis on culture (religions, holidays, customs, language) in addition to information on historical background and settlement patterns. The encyclopedia also covers ethnoreligious groups such as Jews, Chaldeans and Amish.
Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations
"Presents easy-to-understand information on 194 countries and dependencies from around the world. Entries discuss a variety of topics in detail, from banking and securities to climate, from government data to demographic statistics. Also includes biographical essays on national leaders."

Spanish Language, Literature, & Culture Resources:

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture
Provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary view of Latin American history and culture from prehistoric times to the present. Covers cultural issues and includes numerous biographical profiles of important figures in politics, letters and the arts.
Mexico Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Republic
"Everything from traditional folklore and music to pop culture such as television soap operas and Lucha Libre, a theatrical form of wrestling, make up the fabric of modern life in Mexico."
Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
This encyclopedia "covers art, archaeology, religious studies, anthropology, history, and historiography" of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, including the Olmec, Aztec, and Mayans.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mexican History and Culture
This work provides a compendium of the best available scholarship on Mexico’s rich history and culture. Themes include the expected topics of politics and economics, combined with powerful articles on biography, environment, gender, and culture, including music, art, and cinema.
World Literature in Spanish: An Encyclopedia
Provides an introduction to the literature composed in Spanish. This linguistically based (rather than nationally defined) understanding of Spanish literature transcends genres, time periods, and political boundaries and recognizes that the growing diversity within national borders and the increasing interdependence between nations require new ways of understanding “national” literature.
Biblioteca virtual Miguel de Cervantes
This site provides to information on a wide variety of sources, including Spanish and Latin American authors, literary themes, places, and historic Hispanic figures.

Author pages include biographies, chronologies, primary documents (if applicable), links to full-text versions of works, images, and bibliographies of resources about the author, as well as critical studies of their work.
Los Poetas.com
Biographies of poets and full text of some of their works. Authors are from Central & Latin America & Spain. Site is entirely in Spanish.
Anthology of Spanish Poetry
Full-text poems available in Spanish. Authors of these works include San Juan de la Cruz, Lope de Vega, Garcilaso de la Vega, Jose de Espronceda, and many others.
Poesia en Espanol
A large selection of full-text, Spanish poetry. The poems are searchable by author, time period, and title. Site is entirely in Spanish.

French Language, Literature, & Culture Resources:

The Marandet Collection of French Plays
A digitized collection of 18th- and 19th-century French plays (University of Warwick).

Chinese Language, Literature, & Culture Resources:

Encyclopedia of Modern China
Provides information on China including: the people, politics, economics, religion, philosophy, traditions, art, and literature from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day.