Reference Databases
Best bets:
- Literature Online (LION) Gitenstein Library database One of the major draws of this databases is that it provides access to over 300 volumes in the Cambridge Companions series. Incorporates dictionaries, encyclopedias, and author biographies.
- Literature Resource Center Gitenstein Library database Access Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and Dictionary of Literary Biography. Use the Gale Literary Index (link at the bottom of the database's homepage) to find more information about authors in printed Gale literary series. Looking for reviews? LRC is also a good review source.
- Oxford Reference Online Gitenstein Library database literary reference works searchable via a single interface
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by
The ODNB is the standard reference work for British biography. Extensive bibliographic essays accompany many entries. Also available in print, Reference Collection, 1st floor of TCNJ Library (call # DA28 .O95 2004).
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 019861411XPublication Date: 2004-09-23
The Oxford English Dictionary by
(1150 CE- ) Documents the history of words in the English language including variant spellings, obsolete forms, combinations, derivatives, and definitions. More limited coverage of scientific and technical vocabulary, slang, jargon, and dialect. Meanings are arranged historically. Includes quotations from novelists, playwrights, journalists, scholars, scientists, legislators, politicians, diarists, saints, philosophers. Includes the full text of the 1989 Second Edition (20 printed volumes) and the 1993-1997 addition series (3 printed volumes). Advance release material for the projected 2010 New (Third) Edition is incorporated quarterly.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 0198611862Publication Date: 1989-03-30
Also great:
LRC: Find Credible Biographical and Other Background Information
In the Literature Resource Center (LRC) database, perform an Advanced Search for "American literature (Colonial period)" in Subject. At the top of your results list, click "Biographies (171)". Now, in the right-hand column, FILTER YOUR RESULTS by Publication Title. Note these critical reference works:
- American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734
- American Colonial Writers, 1735-1781
- American Women Prose Writers to 1820
Entries in all three volumes—components of the Dictionary Literary Biography series—are extremely useful. For example, the 5,584-word entry for Mary Rowlandson in American Women Prose Writers to 1820 incorporates a biographical essay written by an Emory University English professor (Amy Schrager Lang); a list of Rowlandson's primary works; and a bibliography of secondary sources—two books and several journal articles—written by other literary scholars. Note the presence of links to Related Subjects within the database.
