LibGuides: British Literature II: Online Searching

Search the Library Catalog and Online Collections

Online Literary Databases

These databases focus on literary themes and authors, including critical works. Read the descriptions to decide which database may work best for your research. Your moodle login will be required if you're off-campus!

Films on Demand Streaming Video This link opens in a new window
Thousands of high quality videos on business & economics, health & medicine, humanities & social sciences, and science & mathematics, as well as travel and fitness programming, home and how-to videos, indie films, and popular music performances. Includes Oscar, Emmy and Peabody award winning documentaries, interviews, instructional and vocational training videos, historical speeches and newsreels.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Articles, critical essays, work and topic overviews, full-text works, and biographies covering authors, their works, and literary movements.
Blue Ridge username and password required for off-campus use.

Cyclopedia of Literary Places
Each article provides standard top matter on an individual literary work, followed by entries discussing important real and imaginary places that figure into the work. Emphasis is not so much on the places themselves, but on how they are used as literary devices within the overall work. The titles covered in Cyclopedia of Literary Places are selected from the 1,805 titles in Masterplots that best lend themselves to discussion of place: virtually all the novels, most of the plays, and a selection of volumes of poetry.

ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
General reference database for over 175 subjects from magazines, journals and newspapers, including peer-reviewed and scholarly works.
Blue Ridge username and password required for off-campus use.
Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Scholarly titles supporting student and faculty research, and general nonfiction on topics such as school & studying, career development, arts & leisure, and practical life skills.
Blue Ridge username and password required for off-campus use.
eBooks on EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window
Nearly 25,000 fiction, reference, scholarly, and professional books online
Blue Ridge username and password required for off-campus use.
ABC CLIO eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
History & literature eBooks, including the series Daily Life, Critical Companions, Literature in Context, as well as American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography.
Blue Ridge username and password required for off-campus use

William Tarvin's Blog
This site's handouts discuss aspects of the literary works of major British writers. Also certain European writers who influenced British Literature will be discussed. Click the letter of the last name of the author, which will direct you to the titles of her or his works.

Start Here!

How to Research your Travel Project
A video to show you some of the resources you can use to research your travel project.

British Literature Videos

Get your research kicked off with some fresh insight into your author's lives and works. You may find some unique places to visit during your trip with these videos. Also feel free to search the entire Films on Demand Streaming Video library, linked to the left. Simply input your moodle username and password when prompted for off-campus viewing!

English Public Sculpture: Peter Pan
Video footage and commentary provide insights regarding ten works of English public sculpture. This segment features the Victoria Memorial, Gladstone Memorial, Peter Pan, Physical Energy, British Medical Association Figures, Stations of the Cross, Memorial to the Heroes of the Marine Engine Room, Cenotaph, Royal Fusiliers Memorial, and Monument to Edith Cavell.
Hardy's Wessex: Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Hardy challenged Victorian hypocrisy by naming Tess a pure woman. Scenes from the novel can be found in West Stafford. See Hardy friend T.E. Lawrence's house and the church of the D'Urberville window.
Historical Source Behind "Dracula"
Bram Stoker's novel sets out what everyone needs to know to defend themselves against vampires. Stoker's vampire was cast as a count from the Romanian province of Transylvania. Vlad Tepes appears to be the man behind the myth.
Illustrated Wonderlands: The Beauty of Books: "Alice in Wonderland"
See examples of the partnership between Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) and John Tenniel. "Alice in Wonderland" invites children and adults to explore its deeper meanings.
Inside Tolkien's "The Hobbit"
The Hobbit is one of the most successful children's books of all time and it is heartwarming to know that the genesis of this book lay in Tolkien's relationship with his children. With video footage and recordings of Tolkien and his children, Bob Carruthers and Humphrey Carpenter take us on a journey behind the creation of The Hobbit.
Oscar Wilde: A Concise Biography
This introduction to the life and literature of Oscar Wilde from the Famous Authors series begins by introducing Wilde's passionately political, literary, and flamboyant parents and 19th-century Dublin, the earliest and strongest influences on the writer.
Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Romance
In 1814, Percy Bysshe Shelley entered Mary's life. He was a well-known poet and renegade. Mary was his intellectual equal, and he encouraged her to write.
Robert Louis Stevenson: A Concise Biography
In this introduction to Robert Louis Stevenson's life and work from the Famous Authors series, the audience gets a look at 19th-century Scotland and the members of Stevenson's family.
The Bronte Sisters: A Concise Biography
This program from the Famous Authors series introduces the rich imaginative life of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, exposed to the world of literature by their father Patrick Brontë: priest, examiner, and writer. The family struggled with poverty, and the family home Haworth and moorland provided inspiration for the daughters. Charlotte and Emily were educated at Cowan Bridge School, later the inspiration for Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, until their father could no longer ignore the mistreatment they suffered there.
The Fellowship of the Ring
The roots of J. R. R. Tolkien's works are firmly set in the rural landscape of Warwickshire. Graham McTavish goes to the heart of England to explore the background of one of the most famous pieces of literature, The Lord of the Rings.
The Places of Dickens' Books
Cobham Hall, The Leather Bottle, Sir John Falstaff, and East Gate House all have prominence in Dickens' novels. He becomes fascinated with Gad's Hill Place and eventually purchases the home. Chatham and Rochester are inspiring backgrounds for Dickens.
The Real Jane Austen
Illustrated with clips from movie and television adaptations of her novels, this program takes a visually rich approach to understanding the woman behind such classics as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. An extensive biographical and psychological profile of the author provides insight into what life was like for a woman in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Universal Themes in "The Fifth Child"
Universal themes of vindictive gods and old myths permeate the themes of Lessing's "The Fifth Child."

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