Library Guides: English: Rhetoric and Composition: Books To Get You Started

Library Catalogs

To find works dedicated to research on an author, do a subject search on the author's name, last name first.
A keyword search on the author's name will find these works, plus works by the author, and sections of more general works.

WorldCat
Date Coverage: Before 1000 BC-date

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Books Online

Literature Online Text Collection
Full text of more than 350,000 selected works of poetry, drama and prose in English from the eighth century to the present. Allows the definition of searchable collections by nationality, gender, individual authors, etc.
Google Book Search
Hathi Trust
Internet Archive Text Collection
Online Books Page (UPenn)
Project Gutenberg

Early English Books Online
Provides full text, digital images of almost every book printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and every book in the English language printed abroad from 1470-1700.
Access provided through a partnership of the English Department, the College of Arts and Science and the MU Libraries.

Date coverage: 1475-1700
ECCO - Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Contains English-language titles and editions based on the English Short Title Catalogue, made available online over the course of the next two years.
Date Coverage: 1701-1800

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Search Guide: http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO?locID=morenetuomcolum&ste=24
Early American Imprints Series I Evans (1639-1800)
Contains searchable PDF's of materials published in Colonial America and the early U.S. such as books, pamphlets, and broadsides. The collection may be browsed by topic (e.g., Genre: Songs, Economics: Liquor Traffic, History: Louisiana Purchase,etc.)
Date Coverage: 1639-1800

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Early American Imprints Series II Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)
Contains searchable PDF's of material published in the U.S. in the early 19th Century including state papers and early government materials which chronicle the political and geographic growth of the developing American nation. In addition to searching, the collection may be browsed by topic (e.g., Genre: Satires, Peoples: Illinois Indians, Government: Church and State).
Date Coverage: 1801-1819

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Black Authors, 1556-1922: Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia
More than 550 full-text works by Black authors from the Americas, Europe and Africa, from the renowned holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Works include personal narratives, autobiographies, histories, expedition reports, military reports, novels, essays, poems and musical compositions.