Primary Texts
PRIMARY SOURCE DATABASES FOR 19TH CENTURY LITERATURE
The Library provides networked access to many more full-text, primary source databases than can be listed here. Others may be located through the Library Catalog and Databases, which contains an alphabetical list of online resources related to Linguistics, Language and Literature.
- ProQuest One LiteratureFormer name: Literature Online. Offers a full-text collection of poetry, drama, and prose with complementary references sources as well as articles, monographs and dissertations from the Annual bibliography of English language and literature (ABELL); full-text articles from literary journals; and biographical information on widely studied authors.
- Eight CenturiesFormerly known as 19th Century Masterfile. Searchable index to a variety of 19th century Anglo-American periodical articles, documents and other primary and secondary sources published before 1930. Many links to full text. Aggregates indexes to books, periodicals, newspapers, government documents and patents into a single resource.
- American PeriodicalsAmerican Periodicals includes two full text resources: American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) and American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries. Both contain digitized images of American special interest and general magazines, labor and trade publications, scientific and literary journals, and photographic periodicals, as well as other historically significant titles, from the 19th century through the dawn of the 20th century. Because the database contains digitized images of periodical pages, researchers can see all of the original typography, drawings, graphic elements, and article layouts exactly as they were originally published.
- British PeriodicalsA fully searchable database that provides the full text of periodical articles published in Britain from the 1680s to the 1930s. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences, literature, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
- The Times digital archive, 1785-2006Full-text and full-image articles from the Times of London for the years 1785-2006.
- Sunday Times Digital Archive, 1822-2006Database coverage begins with the Sunday Times, issued October 20, 1822-December 24, 1903; The Sunday special, issued January 3, 1904-January 24, 1904; The Sunday Times and Sunday Special, issued January 31, 1904-January 4, 1931; and Sunday times, January 11, 1931-December 31, 2006. Includes the Sunday Times Magazine, issued February, 1962.
- Victorian Popular CultureAn essential resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Consists of four components: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Moving pictures, optical entertainments & the advent of cinema. Includes full-text, full-color reproductions of books, ephemera, handbills, pamphlets, photos, posters, programs, scripts, and other types of materials. Coverage is most extensive for Great Britain; but there is also a fair range of materials for the U.S.A.
- Victorian Women Writers ProjectThe Victorian Women Writers Project (VWWP) began in 1995 at Indiana University and is primarily concerned with the exposure of lesser-known British women writers of the 19th century. The collection represents an array of genres - poetry, novels, children's books, political pamphlets, religious tracts, histories, and more. VWWP contains scores of authors, both prolific and rare. - website
- Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900The vast majority of articles written for Victorian periodicals were published anonymously, or under pseudonyms. The Wellesley Index identifies the authors of articles within major Victorian periodicals, and provides a bibliography for each contributor. 45 important monthly and quarterly titles are included, covering the period from the beginning of the Westminster Review in 1824 to the end of the century. The exception to this is the Edinburgh Review, which is indexed from first issue, in 1802. Wellesley does not index poetry.
Rare Books & Manuscripts
The Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC) includes 400,000 printed volumes, more than 70 million manuscripts, and another million photographs, paintings, prints, and other visual media. A number of collections contain material related to the history of literature and theatre in England and the U.S.