Library Guides: English Literature: Bibliographical Reference Works

Bibliographical Reference Works

Bibliography of American Literature
Compiled by Jacob Blanck and completed by Michael Winship and Virginia L. Smyers. Lists more than 37,000 records of the literary works of 281 American writers from the Revolution to 1930.

Bibliography of English Women Writers 1500-1640
Lists of reference works and critical materials.

The Bibliography of English Women Writers 1500-1640 has evolved into a still-growing list of scholarship about 738 recovered writers and located texts, canonical and non-canonical. It identifies many hitherto unknown writers, including among them not only already familiar figures, but also women refugees such as the recusants, women in the colonies, Marrano women (Anusot), women translators, and English women writers in French, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900
Covers the contents of forty-five of the most prominent Victorian periodicals.

The vast majority of articles written for Victorian periodicals were published anonymously, or under pseudonyms. The Wellesley Index identifies the authors of articles within 45 major Victorian periodicals, and provides a bibliography for each contributor. It incorporates the Curran Index of corrections and additions to the original index.
WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch)
The largest shared catalog in the world, with current and retrospective records for books and other publications giving details and locations.

OCLC WorldCat database is the OCLC online union catalog. It contains over 43 million records describing library holdings around the world.

Finding Individual Poems, Plays, and Stories

Union First-Line Index of English Verse
A database of the first lines of manuscript verse from the 13th to the 19th centuries held by major research libraries.
INTER-PLAY
Indexes citations for international plays and playwrights in collections, anthologies, and periodicals held by the Portland State University Library. No longer updated as of December 2013.