Research Guides @ Fordham: English and American Literature: Databases & Articles

Scholarship & Criticism

Contemporary Authors Online (Gale Literature)
Biographical information on thousands of modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters.
Gale Literature Platform Search
Gale's literature platform for cross-searching: Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center, LitFinder, Scribner Writers Online and Twayne's Authors on GVRL. Click on 'What's Inside' to find series title and available editions.
Humanities International Index
Comprehensive database covering over 2000 journals, books and other important reference sources.
Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism
A comprehensive historical survey of the field's most important figures, schools, and movements. Updated annually.
Literature Criticism (Gale)
A comprehensive collection of literary criticism from classical to modern times.
Literature Resource Center (Gale)
Literature reference database. Includes information on literary figures from all time periods writing in all genres; thousands of overviews of literary works; thousands of author portraits; Access to numerous literary journals; some literary criticism (see Literature Criticism Online for comprehensive coverage).Content is selective; Not all full volumes; Click on the title list to see Fordham holdings.
MLA International Bibliography with Full Text
Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), this subject index dates back to the 1920s and contains millions of citations from journals and series, as well as book publishers. Covers modern languages, literature, folklore and linguistics. Does not include MLA Directory of Periodicals.
Salem Literature
Online access to the content of purchased print reference series including Magill's Literary Annuals, Critical Surveys, Maserplots-4th Edition and Critical Insights - Authors, Themes and Works.
Scribner Writers Online Series
Collections of e-books. Includes biographical and critical essays on the lives and works of more than 1400 authors from around the world and for all time periods.
Shakespeare Survey Online
Full text of articles from Shakespeare Survey, an annual journal published since 1948.
Twayne's Authors Online
Includes over 600 well-known books from Twayne's World, English and US Authors series.
World Shakespeare Bibliography Online
Comprehensive record of Shakespeare-related scholarship and theatrical productions published or produced worldwide between 1960 and 2011. From Oxford University Press. Note for remote access: after reaching the homepage, click on the (?) in the upper right corner to make sure you see "Welcome, Fordham University"
Click on the "Search and Browse" link to begin your search.
Oxford Bibliographies Online
Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this resource directs researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects, including Literary & Critical Theory.

Full Text Literature

BBC Shakespeare Plays
Videos of 37 Shakespeare plays from Ambrose Digital Publishing. Click on the blue banner for a full list of titles.
Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson
Now Open Access! Jonson's complete writings online. Explores the work of Shakespeare’s greatest contemporary with contextual documents, essays, high-quality images, music scores and stage performances.
Columbia Granger's World of Poetry - Access Ends 6/30/2025
Reports of Chrome browser not working. Try Firefox or another browser. An authoritative reference for anthologized poetry, over 450,000 citations, 300,000 full text poems, 6,000 subject headings, 2,000 poem commentaries, 600 glossary terms, approximately 500 poet biographies, and full-text of 14 essential Columbia University Press titles of poetry history and criticism. Remote access available through NYPL. Click here for more information on how to access NYPL resources online.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Digital Edition
New Interface 1/4/24. From Readex. Books, pamphlets, and broadsides published during the 17th and 18th centuries from the bibliography by Charles Evans and Roger Bristol's Supplement.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker
New interface 1/4/24. From Readex. Books, pamphlets, and broadsides published during the early 19th century from the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Full text of 180,000 books published from 1700 to 1799. Transitioning to a new platform. Not all Browse functions working.
Folger Digital Texts: Shakespeare's Plays, Sonnets and Poems
Folger Shakespeare Library, home of the world's largest and finest Shakespeare collection, offers high-quality digital texts of Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, and poems. Includes free downloading of the source code for noncommercial Shakespeare projects.
Gale Literature Platform Search
Gale's literature platform for cross-searching: Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center, LitFinder, Scribner Writers Online and Twayne's Authors on GVRL. Click on 'What's Inside' to find series title and available editions.
LitFinder (Gale Literature)
More than 130,000 full-text poems and 650,000+ poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays. The database also includes secondary materials like biographies, images, and more.
Nineteenth Century Index - Access Ends 7/31/25
Now on the main ProQuest platform, C19 Index is the bibliographic spine of 19th century research, providing integrated access to the most important finding aids for books, periodicals, official publications, newspapers and archives. Remote access available through NYPL. Click here for information on how to access NYPL resources online.
Nineteenth Century British Pamphlets
Online access to British pamphlets held in UK research libraries that cover the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of their day.
Parker Library on the Web
Manuscripts and documents spanning the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine to sixteenth-century records of the English Reformation digitized from Matthew Parker’s Library at Corpus Christi College.
Includes the earliest copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (c. 890), unique copies of Old English poems and King Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. The Parker Library also contains key Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts, medieval travelogues and maps, apocalypses, bestiaries, royal ceremonies, historical chronicles and Bibles.