American Literature Subject Guide


Reference Materials:

  • 19th Century Literature: REF PN 671 .N5
  • 20th Century American Literature: REF PS 221 .T834 V 1
  • American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734: REF PS 88 .D5 Vol. 24
  • American Realists and Naturalists: REF PS 88 .D5 Vol. 12
  • American Women Writers : a Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present: REF PS 147 .A4 V 2
  • American writers before 1800 : a Biographical and Critical Dictionary: REF PS 185 .A4 Vol. 1
  • Contemporary Literary Criticism: REF PN 771 .C59
  • Drama Criticism. REF PN 1601 .D59
  • Dictionary of American Literary Biography. REF PS 129 .C66
  • Literary Criticism. REF PS 85 .C76
  • Poetry Criticism. REF PN 1010 .P6
  • Short Story Criticism. REF PN 3373 .S386
  • Critical Surveys: Long Fiction: REF

*For additional American Literature reference sources please contact a librarian.

Circulating Materials:

All circulating American Literature materials are located on the second floor of the library under the listed call number ranges. Please check the online catalog for specific titles and call numbers.

Ps 1-3600 American Literature
PS 1-125 History and Criticism
PS 126-173 Special cases (Includes women and African American authors)
PS 185-228 By period (17th-20th century)
PS 248-286 Special regions, states, etc (With special emphasis on Southern literature)
PS 301-461 Special topics (Includes poetry, drama, humor, and short stories)
PS 507-688 Collections of American Literature (By genre)
PS 700-3600 Individual authors (Alphabetically by period, 17th-20th century)

E-Resources:

Additional reference, primary source documents and secondary sources are available through our E-Research Tools

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library A general reference source for a number of subjects including full-text documents, analysis and commentary for major American Literature genres and authors
  • Gale Literature Criticism Online Online access to more than 100 volumes from the Short Story Criticism series featuring major authors and surveys of critical response to their work
  • Critical Insights Full text, analysis and commentary focusing on Hemingway, Hawthorne and Poe
  • Critical Surveys, Long Fiction Nearly 700 profiles of major writers (international and American) of all genres of long fiction. Includes biographical information, historical context and analysis of the authors’ major works.

Articles/Reference Resources/Videos available through NCLIVE:

Type your search terms in to the NCLIVE database search program or search for a particular magazine title in NCLIVE. Read the abstract (that’s the symbol at the end of the title line with a magnifying glass) to see if the article meets your needs, and then look for the “HTML Full Text” symbol at the bottom of the entry.If you need help searching NCLIVE, please ask a librarian.

Suggested databases and titles from NCLive include:

  • American Poetry
  • American Literature
  • American Scholar
  • Chronology of American Literature
  • Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
  • Early American Literature
  • Literary Contexts in Novels series
  • Literary Contexts in Plays series
  • Literary Contexts in Poems series
  • Literary Contexts in Poetry series
  • Literary Reference Center
  • Milestones in American Literary History
  • Southern Literary Journal

Internet Resources:

  • Literary Criticism at Drexel University Full text criticism and historical context for a number of American authors and offers author, title, and time period searches
  • Project Gutenberg Online access to many books that are no longer in copyright, including full texts for many of the major novels, plays, and poems in American literature.
  • The Walt Whitman Archive Access to a large portion of Whitman's writings and also offers resources, study guides, and criticism.
  • W.W. Norton Anthology of a American Literature Links to background and summary information on all major periods of American literature
  • Project Bartleby Archive of online texts that includes many relevant poems, fiction and nonfiction works, and reference books
  • The Early Americas Digital Archive Online archive of texts and links to text originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820