LibGuides: Literary Arts: Primary Sources Online

Drama Resources

American Drama 1714-1915
Offers more than 1,500 dramatic works from the early 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century.
Containing more than 1,500 dramatic works from the early eighteenth century up to the beginning of the twentieth, American Drama 1714-1915 reflects American dramatic writing in all its richness and diversity: plays in verse, farces, melodramas, minstrel shows, realist plays, frontier plays, temperance dialogues and a range of other genres are represented.
Asian-American Drama
Contains the full text of more than 250 plays by 42 Asian-American dramatists, including many works that are otherwise unpublished, along with production and thematic information.
Asian American Drama brings together more than 250 plays, along with related biographical, production, and theatrical information, so providing a comprehensive overview of this growing field. The collection begins with the works of Sadakichi Hartmann in the late nineteenth century and it is planned to include contemporary playwrights, such as Philip Kan Gotanda, Elizabeth Wong, and Jeannie Barroga.

Becker Library Catalog
The Becker Library is a collection of play scripts housed with the Theater and Performance Studies building. Please contact TAPS for information about the location and use of this collection. This link is to the library's catalog (it's still searchable, if clunky).

Black Drama, Second Edition.
Contains 1,462 plays by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries, 1850-present
1850-present; Black Drama, Second Edition contains approximately 1,462 plays from the mid-1800s to the-present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.
Black Drama, Third Edition
Contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the-present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries
Black Drama, now in its expanded third edition, contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the-present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.
Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare
Provides access to 11 major editions from the First Folio of 1623 to the Cambridge edition of 1863-66, 28 separate contemporary printings of individual plays, selected Apocrypha, and related works, 1591-1911
Eleven major editions from the First Folio to the Cambridge edition of 1863-66, twenty-four separate contemporary printings of individual plays, selected Apocrypha and related works and more than one hundred adaptations, sequels and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Eighteenth Century Drama
A unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence in London between 1737 and 1824, and hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays.

English Drama
Contains more than 3,900 plays in verse and prose from the late thirteenth century to the early twentieth
A unique collection of plays in verse and prose tracing the development of drama in English from the medieval mystery cycles to the comedies of Oscar Wilde.
Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama and Fiction
Includes more than 100,000 pages of poetry, short fiction, novels, and more than 450 plays.
New Play Exchange
An ever-growing database of scripts by contemporary playwrights, New Play Exchange provides an open, egalitarian platform on which writers can share their work and others can discover it.
The New Play Exchange, a National New Play Network project, is the worlds largest digital library of scripts by living writers. The mission of the New Play Exchange is to provide an open, egalitarian platform on which writers all over the world can share their work and others can discover that work.

NINES
NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship) is a scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first. (Includes all types of literature, documents, and images)

North American Indian Drama
Provides access to 244 plays by 48 playwrights representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the 20th century.
This edition of North American Indian Drama contains 244 plays by 48 playwrights. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Mtis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others.
Shakespeare's Globe Archive: Theatres, Players & Performance
A collection of documents, offering insights into the performance practice in the reconstructed Globe Theatre, through prompt books, wardrobe notes, programmes, publicity material, annual reports, photographs
This collection of documents offers insights into the performance practice in the particular space of the reconstructed Globe Theatre. It details the way in which the theatre was constructed as a place of radical experiment. It documents over 200 performances through prompt books, wardrobe notes, programmes, publicity material, annual reports, show reports, photographs and architectural plans.

Fiction & Prose Resources

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)
See ProQuest One Literature.
The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature covers monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. It is available to search via ProQuest One Literature.
Black Short Fiction and Folklore
Brings together 82,000 pages and more than 11,000 works of short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora from the earliest times to the present.
Black Women Writers
Black Women Writers presents 100,000 pages of literature and essays on feminist issues, written by authors from Africa and the African diaspora.
Caribbean Literature
Caribbean Literature is a body of work that is essential for the study of the Caribbean and the Black Diaspora.
Dictionary of Old English: Old English Corpus
Online database consisting of at least one copy of every Old English text. In some cases, more than one copy is included if it is significant because of dialect or date.
The Dictionary of Old English Corpus is an online database consisting of at least one copy of every Old English text. In some cases, more than one copy is included, if it is significant because of dialect or date. As such, the DOEC represents about three million words of Old English and another two million words of Latin.
Early American Fiction 1789-1850
Search and view facsimile images of 400 works of American prose fiction, 1789-1850
Facsimile page images and keyword-searchable full text for more than four hundred works of American prose fiction published before 1850, including key titles such as James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Early American Fiction 1789-1875
Contains the full text of 875 first of editions of American novels and short stories by such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mark Twain, as lesser known name.
Early American Fiction 1789-1875 offers the full text of 875 first editions of American novels and short stories by such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain, as well as a host of minor writers of the period.
Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans (1639-1800) Digital Edition
Provides access to books, pamphlets, broadsides, and periodicals published in America from 1639-1800
Ongoing; based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans and enhanced by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography, this resource serves as the foundation for research on every aspect of 17th and 18th century American life. Upon completion, Evans Digital will consist of over 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images.
Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819): Shaw-Shoemaker, Digital Edition.
Ongoing. Covers every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States. Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819) provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century.
Ongoing, Shaw-Shoemaker covers every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States. Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819) provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century. The continuation of Readex's Early American Imprints: Series I, this rich primary source database, based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and now supplemented by thousands of new items, thoroughly chronicles the people, ideas and events behind the early political, social, cultural and geographic growth of the United States.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this collection now contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement.
From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this collection now contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Subjects include English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) Text Creation Project
Fully searchable electronic texts of 40,000 of the 100,000+ titles in Early English Books Online (EEBO) are being made available through this Text Creation Partnership. These editions are presented in a modern format that can be accessed by topic, by date, by type of material, and various other parameters.
Fully searchable electronic texts of 40,000 of the 100,000+ titles in Early English Books Online (EEBO) are being made available through this Text Creation Partnership. These editions are-presented in a modern format that can be accessed by topic, by date, by type of material, and various other parameters for both instructional and research purposes.
Early English Prose Fiction
A collection of more than 200 works from the period 1500-1700, exploring the rich diversity of prose fiction in English in the period preceding the emergence of the realist novel as its dominant form.
A collection of more than 200 works from the period 1500-1700, exploring the rich diversity of prose fiction in English in the period preceding the emergence of the realist novel as its dominant form.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
A fully text-searchable corpus of books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides, and more in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800. ECCO is a digitization of the eighteenth-century section of the works catalogued in the English Short-title Catalogue (ESTC). The ESTC project records all works published or printed in Britain, Ireland, territories under British colonial rule, and the United States. It also catalogues material printed elsewhere which contains significant text in English, Welsh, Irish or Gaelic, as well as any book falsely claiming to have been printed in Britain or its territories.
Eighteenth Century Fiction
A collection of works by writers from the British Isles from the period 1700-1780
A collection of works from the period 1500-1700, exploring the rich diversity of prose fiction in English in the period preceding the emergence of the realist novel as its dominant form.
Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama and Fiction
Includes more than 100,000 pages of poetry, short fiction, novels, and more than 450 plays.
Literature Online (LION)
See ProQuest One Literature.

Literary Authors from Europe and Eurasia Web Archive
Curated by librarians from the Ivy Plus Confederation. "The project aims to archive web content related to literary authors (of both fiction and non-fiction essays), translators, critics, and publishers...with the aim of preserving the history of the contemporary literary process as reflected in the non-print publishing activity of important literary figures and organizations."
Literary Print Culture: The Stationers Archive
1554-21st century; the Stationers’ Company Archive is an important resource for understanding the workings of the early book trade, the printing and publishing community, the establishment of legal requirements for copyright provisions and the history of bookbinding.

Medieval Travel Writing
A collection of manuscripts, focusing on journeys to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia
This collection-presents manuscripts of some of the most important works of European travel writing from the later medieval period. The chief focus is on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia.

NINES
NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship) is a scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first. (Includes all types of literature, documents, and images)

Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Primary source material from many different areas of 19th century history. Includes texts and images.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online is focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, with archives releasing incrementally beginning in spring 2012. The nineteenth century was the first great age of industrialization and technological innovation. It was an age of political revolution and reform, nationalism and nation building, the expansion of empire and colonialism, growing literacy and education, and the flowering of culture both popular and high. It was an age that witnessed the development of the power-driven printing press and the massive explosion of written material that dwarfs the output of the centuries that preceded it. Any undertaking that attempts to synthesize the vast array of nineteenth-century content may be at best only provisionally comprehensive.
Perdita Manuscripts, 1500-1700
Contains manuscripts that were written or compiled by women in the British Isles, 16th-17th centuries.
1500-1700; the manuscripts in this site were written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and they have been sourced from archives and libraries across the United Kingdom and the USA. One of the key attractions of the Perdita Manuscripts is that it brings together little-known material from widely scattered locations.
ProQuest One Literature
A comprehensive collection of primary texts, contemporary and historical criticism, reference sources, full text journals, and audio and video by and about authors from around the world. Search the ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature) index of bibliographic citations for literary criticism here. Formerly Literature Online (LION).
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
Original accounts by women of their travels from the early 19th century to the late 20th century.
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Sources cover a variety of topics including; architecture; art; the British Empire; climate; customs; exploration; family life; housing; industry; language; monuments; mountains; natural history; politics and diplomacy; race; religion; science; shopping and war.
Women Writers Online
1400-1850.
Full text collection of writing by women in English. Includes a wide range of subjects and genres.
1400-1850; full text collection of writing by women in English with currently about 200 texts and growing. Includes a wide range of subjects and genres, and all texts are transcribed in full, including front and back matter.

Poetry Resources

African American Poetry
Includes nearly 3,000 poems by African American poets of the 18th and 19th centuries
African American Poetry contains nearly 3,000 poems by African American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It provides a comprehensive survey of the early history of African American poetry, from the earliest published African American poems to the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first African American poet to achieve national success and recognition.

Alire
"A serial publication of innovative e-poetry programs ranging from traditional hypertext to intricate audio-visual displays. Each work questions the experience of reading on a computer and positions the reader as an interactive partner in the work." **Please note: this is a collection of CD-ROMs, available B-level in the Rock.

American Poetry
Contains more than 40,000 poems by more than 200 poets, from the Colonial American period to the early 20th century
Over 40,000 poems by more than 200 American poets from the Colonial Period to the early twentieth century.
Canadian Poetry
Provides access to 19,000 poems by 177 poets drawn from more than 700 printed sources from the 17th century to the early 20th
Created in partnership with the Electronic Text Centre at the University of New Brunswick Libraries, this unique collection contains the full text of more than 19,000 poems, offering a comprehensive survey of Canadian poetry from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth.
English Poetry
Contains more than 160,000 English poems from the British Isles from the 8th century to the early 20th.
The original ground-breaking Chadwyck-Healey collection, English Poetry contains essentially the complete English poetic canon from the 8th century to the early 20th.
English Poetry, Second Edition
Builds on the original English Poetry collection from the British Isles with the addition of more than 20,000 poems from several new categories.
English Poetry, Second Edition redefines the English poetic canon for the 21st century, building on the achievement of the original English Poetry collection. The collection now offers incomparable representation both of the literary heritages of former colonial countries and of the poetic legacies of English writers who have only been brought back to scholarly attention during the last thirty years.
Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama and Fiction
Includes more than 100,000 pages of poetry, short fiction, novels, and more than 450 plays.
Literary manuscripts. 17th and 18th century poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds
The database includes first lines, last lines, attribution, author, title, date, length, verse form, content and bibliographic references for over 6,600 poems within the collection. Alongside original compositions are painstakingly copied verses, translations, songs and riddles.
The database includes first lines, last lines, attribution, author, title, date, length, verse form, content and bibliographic references for over 6,600 poems within the collection. Alongside original compositions are painstakingly copied verses, translations, songs and riddles. The whole collection is situated within an assortment of manuscripts, some entirely dedicated to poetry, while others contain medicinal recipes, household accounts, draft letters, musical scores and plays. There are also several printed works, with handwritten verse additions.
Literary manuscripts. Victorian manuscripts from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of the New York Public Library
Unpublished poems, working notebooks, holograph manuscripts and drawings trace the inspiration and genesis behind the periods greatest works.
Unpublished poems, working notebooks, holograph manuscripts and drawings trace the inspiration and genesis behind the periods greatest works. Researchers and students can trace the close interconnection of these Victorian authors and subsequently their texts through the mass of personal correspondence between them, revealing the close circles in which the Victorian literary world moved.

Literary Authors from Europe and Eurasia Web Archive
Curated by librarians from the Ivy Plus Confederation. "The project aims to archive web content related to literary authors (of both fiction and non-fiction essays), translators, critics, and publishers...with the aim of preserving the history of the contemporary literary process as reflected in the non-print publishing activity of important literary figures and organizations."
Little Magazines on JSTOR
More than 150 little magazines, focusing primarily on poetry but also including fiction and criticism. Open access.
NINES
NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship) is a scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first. (Includes all types of literature, documents, and images)

Romanticism: Life, Literature & Landscape
A manuscript collection of the Wordsworth Trust, providing access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence
Presenting the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, this digital collection offers students and researchers of the Romantic period access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.
Twentieth-Century African American Poetry
A collection of modern and contemporary African American poetry, featuring almost 9,000 poems by 62 of the most important African American poets of the last century.
A database of modern and contemporary African American poetry, featuring almost 9,000 poems by 62 of the most important African American poets of the last century, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde and Rita Dove.
Twentieth-Century American Poetry
Access more than 50,000 poems by more than 300 poets, including Adrienne Rich, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, and Cathy Song.
This collection includes over 50,000 poems drawn from volumes by over 300 poets, including Adrienne Rich, Andrei Codrescu, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, and Cathy Song.
Twentieth-Century American Poetry, Second Edition
Access more than 50,000 poems by more than 300 poets, including Adrienne Rich, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, and Cathy Song.
This essential collection brings together over 100,000 of the most important and influential poems representing the full range of movements and traditions in American poetry from 1900 to the-present day including Maya Angelou, John Ashbery Gwendolyn Brooks, Clark Coolidge, Rita Dove, Susan Howe, Langston Hughes, W.S. Merwin, Ezra Pound, Adrienne Rich, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams.
Twentieth-Century English Poetry
Provides access to more than 600 volumes of poetry, 1900-present. Poets include W.B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Wilfred Owen, Thom Gunn, Fleur Adcock, Paul Muldoon, Tony Harrison, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Carol Ann Duffy.
A collection of more than 600 volumes of poetry by poets from 1900 to the-present day, including W.B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Wilfred Owen, Thom Gunn, Fleur Adcock, Paul Muldoon, Tony Harrison, Benjamin Zephaniah and Carol Ann Duffy, and incorporating the poets in The Faber Poetry Library.