Research Guides: Book Reviews & Literary Criticism: A Guide to Selected Resources: Find Literary Criticism

Literary Criticism by Author

Critical books

Many authors have entire books written about them and their works.

To find books about a particular author, do a subject (not author) search in UMBrella using the author's name, last name first (e.g. Faulkner, William).

Bibliographies

For many significant authors, one or more books have been published that attempt to list all known criticism. They have titles such as William Faulkner: An Annotated Checklist of Criticism, or J.M. Synge: A Bibliography of Criticism. Healey Library has many of these books on the reference shelves on the 4th floor; their call numbers all begin with "P".

To find these books, do a search for the author as described above under Critical Books. Look in the results for a subject containing the word "bibliography" (e.g. "Faulkner, William, 1897-1962 -- Bibliography").

Literary Criticism: Starting Points

MLA (Modern Language Association) International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The main index for literature and language research. It indexes articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a collection of thousands of high-quality academic journals and ebooks across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The journal archive includes back issues and some current issues.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (via Web of Science) This link opens in a new window
Some of the disciplines covered include: archaeology, architecture, art, Asian studies, classics, dance, folklore, language, linguistics, literary reviews, literature, music, philosophy, poetry, radio, television & film, religion, and theater.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles from scholarly journals and literary magazines are combined with critical essays, work and topic overviews, full-text works, biographies, and more.Researchers at all levels will find the information they need, with content covering all genres and disciplines, all time periods and all parts of the world. From the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the Massachusetts Library System with state funds and federal IMLS funds.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project Muse provides an online collection of scholarly peer-reviewed journals in the humanities and social sciences from not-for-profit publishers.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) collection documents the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction, to provide digital access to the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912. The collection includes 5 series by date and 50 subject subsets, which can be searched separately or together.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1 (1684-1820)
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 2 (1821-1837)
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 3 (1838-1852)
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 4 (1853-1865)
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 5 (1866-1912)

Literary Criticism: Gale Literary Criticism Series

These are multi-volume print reference works. For each author, they include a biographical introduction, a list of principal works, sources for further study, as well as the full text or excerpts of critical essays. All of them can be found on the reference shelves on the 4th floor of Healey Library. Use the index in the last volume of each series to find a particular author.

Contemporary Literary Criticism by Carolyn Riley (Editor)
Call Number: REF PN771 .C59
Publication Date: 1973-1999
Covers authors who are living or died after 1959
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism
Call Number: REF PN771 .T85
Publication Date: 1978-
Covers authors who lived between 1900 and 1999
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism by Laurie L. Harris
Call Number: REF PN761 .N5
ISBN: 0810358018
Publication Date: 1981-10-30
Covers authors who lived between 1800 and 1900
Includes criticism from the 19th century as well as more recent criticism
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 by James E. Person (Editor)
Call Number: REF PN86 .L53 1984
ISBN: 0810361000
Publication Date: 1984-05-15
Authors who lived between 1400 and 1800 (except Shakespeare, who gets his own series at call number PR2965 .S43)
Includes criticism from first publication to the present

Literary Criticism: In-Depth Searching

The above sources are a good place to start, and often suffice to find good critical writing on an author or work. But if fail to find what you need in them, or want to find even more, there are plenty of other places to look.

Critical Survey of Poetry: English Language Series by Frank N. Magill (Editor)
Call Number: REF PR502 .C85 1982
ISBN: 0893563404
Publication Date: 1982-01-01
Covers major English-language poets from all periods.
For each poet, includes very brief biographical information, bibliography, and original signed critical essay.
The Explicator Cyclopedia by Charles Child Walcutt (Editor) and J. Edwin Whitesell (Editor)
Call Number: REF PR401 .E9
Publication Date: 1966-
Collection of brief essays on individual poems taken from the Explicator magazine (through 1962).
More recent essays from The Explicator can be found online in Academic Search Complete.
Literary Criticism of Seventeenth-Century England by Edward W Taylor
Call Number: PR72 .T3
Publication Date: 1967