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RESOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE







THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (MICROFILM SET)

The Eighteenth Century is a large microfilm set that reproduces eighteenth-century texts of all sorts; i.e., it is not limited to poems, plays, and novels. The set as a whole "attempts to record all books, pamphlets, and single sheets printed in any language in the territories governed by Britain during the eighteenth century, and all items printed in English anywhere in the world between 1701 and 1800." The University of Rochester owns units 1-223 (which contain reels 1-7805 of the set). Unfortunately, we had to cancel our subscription to the set several years ago, and since then many more units/reels (which we do not own) have been made available.
The call number for the set is: FILM .E34. This number is used for thousands of reels of microfilm; so, in order to find a particular text, you will have to know what reel it is on and what item number it is on the reel. We have cataloging records in Voyager for units 1-185. The cataloging record for titles in these units will contain the reel number and item number. (We do not have cataloging records for units 185-223).

There is a guide to the collection in the Government Documents/Microtext Center (Call no.: Microtext Reference PR 1134 .E3).

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION

English Literature 1660-1800: A Bibliography of Modern Studies Compiled for Philological Quarterly. Compiled by Ronald s. Crane et al. 4 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950. (Rhees Stacks PR 3 .E58, v. 1-v. 6; Koller-Collins Ref PR 3 .E58, v.1-v.4)
Vol. 1: 1926-1938; Vol. 2: 1939-1950; Vol. 3: 1951-1956; Vol. 4: 1957-1960; Vol. 5: 1961-1965; Vol. 6: 1966-1970.
Duggan, Margaret M. English Literature and Backgrounds 1660-1700: A Selective Critical Guide. 2 vols. New York: Garland, 1990. (Z 2012 .D8 1990 v. 1 & v. 2)
A bibliography with commentary on the works listed, this book contains information on Literary Themes and Ideas, the Arts, History, and Religion, as well as major and minor authors.
Lund, Roger D. Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century English Literature 1660-1740: A Selected Bibliography of Resource Materials. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1980. (Z 2012 .L88)

Spector, Robert D. Backgrounds to Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Literature: An Annotated Bibliographical Guide to Modern Scholarship. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989. (Z 2012 .S65 1989)
Contains sections on such topics as Publishing, Printing, and Journalism; History and Politics; Science, Medicine, and Technology; Crime and the Law; Literature and the Arts; etc.


LANGUAGE

The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 3: 1476-1776. Ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. (Rhees and Robbins PE 1072 .C36 1992 v.3)


LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS

See the Koller-Collins webpage on Locating Literary Manuscripts for more information on mss.

The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
NUCMC contains descriptions of over 70,000 manuscript collections located in more than 1400 repositories.

Vols. 1-29 (for the years 1959-1993) (Reference Stacks Z 106 .N27)

There is also an Index to Personal Names in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections 1959-1984 (2 vols.; also in the Reference Stacks Z 106 .N272)

From 1986/1987 to the present there has been online cataloging of NUCMC available on the web.

Location Register of English Literary Manuscripts and Letters: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Ed. David C. Sutton. 2 vols. London: The British Library, 1995. (Koller-Collins Ref PR441.L62 1995)


BOOK REVIEWS

Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749-1774. Compiled by Antonia Forster. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. (Koller-Collins Ref Z 1035 .A1 F67 1990)
Index to reviews of poetry, drama, and fiction found in 16 periodicals.
Index to Book Reviews in England, 1775-1800. Compiled by Antonia Forster. London: The British Library, 1997. (Koller-Collins Ref Z 1035 .A1 F675 1997)
Index to reviews of 4984 works of poetry, drama, and fiction found in 27 periodicals.
Literary Reviews in British Periodicals 1789-1797: A Bibliography with a Supplementary List of General (Non-Review) Articles on Literary Subjects. Compiled by William S. Ward. New York: Garland, 1979. (Koller-Collins Reference Z 2013 .W36 1979)
(Note that there are additional volumes for 1798-1820 and 1821-1826.)


POETRY

Mell, Donald C., Jr. English Poetry, 1660-1800: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1982. (Z 2014 .P7 M44 1982)
An annotated bibliography containing sources for background to the poetry of the period and a listing of writings by and about 31 poets.
The English Poetry Full-Text Database. (set of CD's in Robbins Library)
Contains all the poetry by all the poets in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature from the beginning to about 1900. The entire database is searchable. Disc 3 covers 1700-1800.


DRAMA

Link, Frederick M. English Drama, 1660-1800: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1976. (Z 2014 .D7 L55)
Contains information on Collections of Plays; Playhouses and Playgoers; Dramatic History; and Literary Criticism. There are also brief sections on a large number of playwrights.
A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. By Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. 16 vols. Cabondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973-1993. (Koller-Collins and Reference PN 2597 .H5)

The London Stage 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary Comment Compiled from the Playbills, Newspapers and Theatrical Diaries of the Period. 5 vols. In 11. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960-1968. (PN 2592 .L84; vols. 3-5 also in Koller-Collins)
Each volume has a critical introduction.
Langhans, Edward A. Eighteenth Century British and Irish Promptbooks: A Descriptive Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. (PN 2593 .L36 1987)
Contains descriptions of over 380 English and Irish promptbooks. Includes indication of the libraries in which the books may be found.


FICTION

McBurney, William H. A Check List of English Prose Fiction, 1700-1739. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960. (PR 851 .M11c)

A Check List of Prose Fiction Published in England, 1740-1749. Compiled by Jerry C. Beasley. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, Published for the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 1972. (Z 2014 .F4 B37)

A Catalogue Checklist of English Prose Fiction, 1750-1800. By Leonard Orr. Tory, NY: Whitston Publishing Co., 1979. (Z 2014 .F4 O77)

Hahn, H. George, and Carl Behm III. The Eighteenth-Century British Novel and Its Background: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Topics. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1985. (Z 2014 .F4 H33 1985)
Contains a list of topics which lead to background sources and articles.
Letellier, Robert Ignatius. The English Novel 1660-1700: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. (Z 2014 .F4 L46 1997)
An annotated bibliography listing: other relevant bibliographies; anthologies of fiction from the period; general studies, including historical, intellectual and cultural backgrounds, literary theory, criticism; and motifs; an alphabetical list of individual authors, titles, and translations from 1660-1700; and a selected chronological shortlist of prose fiction in English from the period.
Beasley, Jerry C. English Fiction, 1660-1800: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1978. (Z 2014 .F5 B42)
Includes general reference works relevant to the study of fiction of the period; histories and surveys of the English novel; studies of the genre of the novel; history and criticism; checklists and bibliographies; periodicals and serials; and related background sources. This is followed by material relating to 29 novelists, including lists of their works, editions of their works, letters, journals and diaries (if relevant), and bibliographies, biographies, and critical studies.
Mazzeno, Laurence W. The British Novel 1680-1832: An Annotated Bibliography. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press and Pasedena, CA: Salem Press, 1997. (Z 2014 .F4 M385 1997)
An annotated bibliography of criticism relating to 20 important writers of the period. The criticism is primarily from the three decades preceding publication of the book.
Frank, Frederick S. The First Gothics: A Critical Guide to the English Gothic Novel. New York: Garland, 1987. (Z 2014 .H67 F7 1987)
Lists 500 early Gothic novels (1753-1835), "a representative cross-section of the entire Gothic canon," and describes each in a "critical synopsis." In addition to giving original publication information, the compiler also lists modern editions, if there are any.


WOMEN WRITERS

Hansen, Marlene R. The Fair Sex: Writing by and about Women in the British Isles, 1600-1800. A Bibliographical Study of Material in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, with a Biographical Index. Copenhagen: Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, 1988. (Z 2013.5 .W6 H3 1988)
Contains very brief biographical sketches (sometimes only a sentence or two) for more than 130 women. Also lists information on topics such as "Feminism, Antifeminism, Education, Misogyny" and "Female Scholarship."
Horwitz, Barbara J. British Women Writers, 1700-1850: An Annotated Bibliography of Their Works and Works about Them. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press and Pasedena, CA: Salem Press, 1997. (Z 2013.5 .W6 H67 1997)
Covers 46 "British Women Authors," some famous, some obscure. Also covers topics such as "Social Change," "The Novel," "Poetry by Women," etc.
Saar, Doreen Alvarez, and Mary Anne Schofield. Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Women Novelists: A Critical Reference Guide. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996. (Z 2014 .F4 S13 1996)
Contains an annotated, chronological list of studies for each of the 35 writers included. Coverage begins with the first decade of the twentieth century.


THE DICTIONARY OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY

A number of volumes of The Dictionary of Literary Biography (Reference PN 41 .D524) focus on the eighteenth century:
Vol. 39, Parts 1 & 2: British Novelists 1660-1800
Vols. 80 & 84: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists, 1st series and 2nd series
Vols. 95 & 109: Eighteenth-Century British Poets, 1st series and 2nd series
Vols. 101 & 104: British Prose Writers, 1660-1800, 1st series and 2nd series
Vol. 142: Eighteenth-Century British Literary Biographers
Vol. 154: The British Literary Book Trade, 1700-1820


WEBSITES


Eighteenth-Century English Novel Guide
This site offers keyword searches of eighteenth-century resources, has a searchable text archive, and discussion lists.

Jane Austen Information Page
A good mix of serious scholarship and entertainment. E-text editions of her six novels and minor works (including juvenilia) are available, plus extensive bibliographies. For entertainment there are Austen jokes, and examples of failed pick-up lines from her novels.

A Guide to Samuel Johnson
This is a good introduction to Samuel Johnson, for this site offers his works, bibliographies, and general information.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
This site offers an e-text edition of Gulliver's Travels, a dictionary, illustrations, and a bibliography.

Dictionary of Sensibility
This site offers a "term list" which is an index of concepts pertaining to sensibility: "Our hypertext collects excerpts from primary texts of sensibility and scatters them among twenty four key terms." Each term has an introduction and excerpts from primary texts. This site also includes a critical bibliography.

The Gothic: Materials for Study
This is a hypertext anthology resulting from a graduate seminar: "We imagine the project as a course reader for an undergraduate college course on the Gothic." Includes: "Individual and Social Psychologies of the Gothic," "The Female Gothic," "The Gothic and the Supernatural," "The Sublime and the Domestic," and "Gothic Drama."

The Gothic Literature Page
This web-site is dedicated to four projects: "The Gothic Novel" which provides a brief history of the genre, "Gothic Resources" which offers papers on the Gothic, examples of Graveyard poetry, and related course syllabi, a "Gothic Bibliography" which is an index of novels sorted both by publication year and author name, and a bibliography dedicated solely to Ann Radcliffe.

Internet Library of Early Journals
The Internet Library of Early Journals is a joint project by the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford, conducted under the auspices of the eLib (Electronic Libraries) Programme. It aims to digitise substantial runs of 18th and 19th century journals, and make these images available on the Internet, together with their associated bibliographic data. The core collection for the project are runs of at least 20 consecutive years of:
Three 18th-century journals:
Gentleman's Magazine
The Annual Register
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Three 19th-century journals
Notes and Queries
The Builder
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine


SPECIAL COLLECTIONS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections has significant holdings in:
John Dryden
Johnson and His Circle
Restoration Drama
Eighteenth-Century Drama
For further information, see the Rare Books Department's page on British and American Literature: