Library Guides: English 4188/7188: Victorian Women Writers:The Brontë Family: Texts & Criticism

Finding Novels & Other Texts

Online Text Collections

Victorian Women Writers Project
The goal of the Victorian Women Writers Project is to produce highly accurate transcriptions of works by British women writers of the 19th century. The works include anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books, and volumes of poetry and verse drama.
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.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
A large collection of digitized books and other materials. Searching is more precise than in Google Books--Hathi uses standard subject headings, dates, etc.--but only public domain works may be viewed and downloaded.
Google Book Search
Be aware that limiting by date does not always work reliably. Works in the public domain (generally pre-1923) may be downloaded. Others may be viewed partially.
Internet Archive
A large digital archive of books, recordings, web sites.

Library Catalogs

MERLIN for materials from the University of Missouri
MOBIUS to search academic libraries in all of Missouri
Prospector for materials from Colorado libraries
WorldCat to search most other places.

Search by author for works by a person; by subject for works about a person.

In the advanced search you can limit by date of publication.

You might also use these keywords to locate early materials re-published later:

sources
correspondence
sermons
diaries
personal narratives
interviews
quotations
collections
speeches
manuscripts
archives

Finding Criticism

A broad selection of books and articles can be searched through Discover @ MU.

For more precision and additional content, use the following databases:

MLA International Bibliography Full Text
Indexes critical scholarship in the modern languages, literature, linguistics and folklore.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Date Coverage: 1963-date
Maximum Users: Unlimited
Truncation: Truncation: * Wildcard: ?
Literature Online
Provides access to English language literature in reference works, bibliographies, web pages and journals.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Formerly known as LION
Date Coverage: Varies by section
Maximum Users: 4
Truncation: Truncation: * Wildcard: ?

Use the book catalogs to find book-length studies. Keyword searching is most effective.

MERLIN for materials from the University of Missouri
MOBIUS to search academic libraries in all of Missouri
Prospector for materials from Colorado libraries
WorldCat to search most other places.

Google Book Search is also helpful for searching for information within books in contrast to catalogs which do not search the full text of the books. Use the "Find this book in print" link in the right sidebar in Google Books to locate a book in a library if you need to see more than can be displayed online.

Literary Research Guide by James L. Harner
Call Number: Online
This handy work lists additional bibliographies and other resources. In the online version you can sign up for a free account and collect the resources that will help you with each research project. We have most, although not all, of the tools listed in the Guide.

Core Websites, Journals, Discussion Groups

The Brontës

The Brontës.net

The Cambridge Companion to the Brontës
The Oxford Companion to the Brontës
Charlotte and Emily Bronte: a Reference Guide
Call Number: PR4168 .C78 1982
A Brontë Family Chronology
Call Number: PR4168 .C553 2003
The Brontes A to Z
Call Number: PR4168 .P28 2003
Charlotte and Emily Bronte: an Annotated Bibliography
Call Number: PR4168 .P287 1979