Guides: English Literatures: Fiction

Researching Novels

Researching Short Stories

Consult these sources to learn more about literary authors, periods, genres, texts, and their historical contexts.

Asian American Short Story Writes: An A-Z Guide
Also in print at LAU Stacks PS153 .A84 A828 2003
The British and Irish Short Story Handbook
The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story
Also in print at LAU Stacks PS374 .S5 C57 2000
A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English
Also in Off Campus Shelving PS374 .S5 R43 2001
Reference Guide to Short Fiction
The Short Story Cycle: A Genre Companion and Reference Guide

Primary Sources - Fiction

19th Century UK Periodicals This link opens in a new window
This database contains 1.2 million pages of periodicals published in Great Britain from 1800-1900. It includes publications on women, children, leisure and sport, humor, and material regarding the expansion of the British empire.
American Periodicals Series Online (1740 to 1940) This link opens in a new window
Digital images of historically significant American periodicals from 1740 to 1900, including literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and popular magazines. All typography, drawings, graphic elements, and article layouts appear exactly as originally published. Allows searching by article type (e.g., letter, obituary, poetry, recipe, ad, editorial cartoon, review).
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, archaeology, architecture, and the social sciences.
Early American Imprints (Series I): Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
Based on the Evans American Bibliography, this collection contains the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets and broadsides printed in the United States or in the British American colonies from 1639 through 1800. It provides a foundation for research in early American history, literature, philosophy, religion, politics and nearly every aspect of life in early America.
When completed, the digital collection will include every item previously published in microform by Readex, plus more than 1,200 additional works located, catalogued and digitized since the microform effort was completed -- more than 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images.
Early American Imprints (Series II): Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the 19th century. In addition to books, pamphlets and broadsides, this collection features many state papers and government materials, including published reports; presidential letters and messages; congressional, state aand government materials, including published reports; presidential letters and messages; congressional, state and territorial resolutions.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
Features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) Text Creation Partnership (TCP) This link opens in a new window
A partner database to Early English Books Online. Provides a subset of fully searchable texts from the titles available in EEBO.
Any EEBO researcher can view the 250,000 page-image editions of EEBO titles, but only TCP partners can view these plus the corresponding full ASCII text.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Digital reproductions of every page of significant English- and foreign-language titles printed in Great Britain during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas and elsewhere. Searches the full text of books, pamphlets, essays, and other non-periodical materials including the complete works of major 18th-century writers.
Covers the fields of history, literature, language, religion, social sciences, philosophy, law, geography, fine arts, science, and medicine. Cross-searchable with Early English Books Online (EEBO).
HarpWeek: The Civil War Era, Reconstruction I & II and Gilded Age I (1857-1912) This link opens in a new window
Provides electronic access to all issues of Harper's Weekly (including all illustrations and advertisements) published between 1857 (first issue) and 1912, with the capacity to browse or search by date, by literary genre, and by a person's occupation. Provides four topical indexes: subject, illustrations, literature & publishing, and advertising.
Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window
Fully searchable library of more than 350,000 full-text works of English and American poetry, drama, and fiction with complementary criticism, reference resources, and websites. Includes over 800 clips of poets reading their own and other poets' work.
Allows you to:
--search both the MLA International Bibliography and the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, with links to full-text articles from over 200 literature journals.
--find a list of works by or about a particular author
--search simultaneously across primary works and secondary sources
--access 1,550 author biographies

Includes full-text databases such as African-American Poetry, Twentieth-Century American Poetry, Early English Prose Fiction, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, English Drama, English Poetry.

Includes reference sources such as The Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism, Encyclopedia of the Novel, New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, the King James Bible, and Webster's Third New International Dictionary.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new window
A multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the nineteenth century, NCCO is comprised of numerous collections, including a variety of material types--monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more--in one cross-searchable location. Collections now available are:

Asia and the West
British Politics and Society
British Theatre, Music and Literature: High & Popular Culture
Children's Literature and Childhood
Europe and Africa, Colonialism and Culture
European Literature, the Corvey Collection, 1790-1840
Maps and Travel Literature
Photography
Religion, Reform, and Society
Science, Technology, and Medicine, Parts I & II
Women and Transnational Networks
Past Masters This link opens in a new window
Provides scholarly complete editions of classics (or selections from classics) in philosophy, literature, political science and economics. Examples of authors include Aristotle, Machiavelli, Shelley, Mill, Hume, Nietzsche, Bronte and Adam Smith. In English translation and/or the original language.
Times Literary Supplement, 1902-2014 This link opens in a new window
First appearing in 1902 as a supplement to The Times, the venerable Times Literary Supplement (TLS) is a weekly literary review published in London. See TLS for literary culture and book reviews. TLS Historical Archive contains every page of every issue of the Times Literary Supplement published 1902-2014.
For more current issues see:
HoyaSearch TLS Entry

Fiction Indexes

Fiction Catalog
LAU Stacks & LAU Ref Stacks Z5916 .W74
Fiction Core Collection
LAU Ref Stacks Z5916 .F53

Short Story Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes short stories published in collections, anthologies and periodicals. Short Story Index contains the full text of over 4,000 short stories, starting with works published in 1984. For works published earlier, use Short Story Index Retrospective: 1915 -1983.
Short Story Index Retrospective: 1915-1983 This link opens in a new window
Short Story Index Retrospective is a bibliographic index of short stories written in or translated into English that have appeared in collections and selected periodicals. The periodicals are those indexed from Short Story Index, going back to its beginnings in 1915 through 1983. For works published after 1984, use Short Story Index.

Browsing Areas

The following sections are good for browsing for fiction and books on fiction, which are shelved on the 5th floor of Lauinger Library.

PN 3311-3503 - Prose and Prose Fiction

PN 6120.15-6120.95 - Collections of Fiction

PR 821-890 - English Prose Fiction. The Novel.

PR 1281-1309 - Collections of English Prose (General)

PS 370-380 - American Prose Fiction

PS 642-659.5 - Collections of American Prose (General)

Fiction can also be found scattered throughout the PR and PS sections; however, those titles are interspersed with other genres and non-fiction works.

Sample Subject Headings

Type

Form

Example

Author as Subject

Last name, First name

DeFoe, Daniel

National/Regional Literature

Nationality/Region + Literature

English literature

Irish literature

African literature (English)

Caribbean literature (English)

Literary Genre

Genre

Fiction

Epistolary Fiction

Science Fiction

Short Story

Nationality/Region + Genre

English fiction

English prose literature

Commonwealth fiction (English)

Short stories, American