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Professor
Arthur Deleault
Library Liaison
Gwen Verkuilen
Contents
Introduction
Research Basics
Reference Sources for
Background Information
Search Tips
Find Books/Secondary Sources
Find Journal Articles
Selected Internet Resources
How to Cite Your Sources
Subject Guide
English
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This is a guide to selected sources of information related to Dark and Supernatural Literature. It is meant as a starting point for your research. For further research assistance, please take advantage of the reference services available to you in Geisel Library.
The reference librarians have created a group of Web pages named Research Help and a tutorial called Searchpath to help teach you the basics of library research and to introduce you to Geisel Library. On the Research Help pages, you will find a guide on Research Basics and a helpful guide on evaluating Web resources titled, Judging What You Find. Please take advantage of these resources.
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Reference books are shelved by Library of Congress call number in the reference stacks near the reference desk. They may not be checked out, but photocopiers are available on the lower level of the Library. Online reference sources can be found in the library catalog, or listed on E-Reference Resources.
General Resources
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Find overviews on a wide variety of topics by searching this online encyclopedia. This is a good source for obtaining background info on authors and finding good keywords that represent your topic.
Oxford Reference Online
This database enables you to search within many of Oxford's highly-regarded reference works in the fields of literature and history, including the Oxford Companion to American Literature. This is a good place to get basic background information on an author or literary movement.
Literary Terms, Theory, and Themes
Search these reference materials for entries on terms such as thriller, ghost story, gothic novel, grotesque, sublime, supernatural story, and science fiction among others.
Critical Survey of Literary Theory
Ref PN45 .C74 1988
Dictionary of Literary Terms
Ref PN41 .C83
Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs (2 Volumes)
Ref PN43 .D48
Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory
Ref PN44.5 .H37 1998
Genre & Literary Criticism Resources
Literature Resource Center
This database combines literary databases containing biographical information with bibliographic listings of authors' works, plot summaries, and literary criticism for 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers. This resource also provides the full text of articles from more than 100 literary journals and has links to author's official web sites.
American Short-Fiction Criticism and Scholarship, 1959–1977: A Checklist
Ref PS374 S5W4
American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies (13 volumes, 1974–98)
Ref PS129 .A55
Articles on American Literature (3 volumes)
Ref PS88 .A77
Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature
Ref PN3433.4 .C565
Critical Survey of Short Fiction (7 volumes)
Ref PN3373 .C7
Critical Survey of Long Fiction (8 vols.)
Ref PN3451 .C7
Critical Temper: A Survey of Modern Criticism on English and American Literature
from the Beginnings to the Twentieth Century (4 volumes)
Ref PR83.C764
Eighteenth-Century Gothic Novel: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism and Selected Texts
Ref PR858.T3 M3
Encyclopedia of Gothic Literature
Ref PN3435 .S58 2005
Facts on File Companion to the American Short Story
Ref PS374.S5 F33
Guide to the Gothic III: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, 1994–2003
Ref PN3435 .F74 2005
Guide to Supernatural Fiction
Ref PN56.S8B57
Icons of Horror and the Supernatural (2 volumes)
Ref PN56 .H6 I26
Literary Criticism Series
Contemporary Literary Criticism (Ref PN94 .C65)
Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism (Ref PN761 .N56)
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (Ref PN94 .T83)
To find out the volumes in which your author or literary work are covered, use the Gale Literary Index.
Popular World Fiction 1900–Present (4 volumes)
Ref PN3503.P586
The Science Fiction Encyclopedia
Ref PNS3443.4 .S33
Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index: An International Author and Subject Index
Ref PN3433.5 .S34
Science Fiction Writers
Ref PS374 .S35 S36
St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers
Ref PN3435 .S246
Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror (2 volumes)
Ref PN3435 .S96
Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror (2 volumes)
Ref PN3435 .S96
Twentieth-Century Short Story Explication
Ref PN3373 .W33
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To search the library catalogs and databases listed below you will need to use Boolean operators (ANDs and ORs), truncation, and quotation marks to pull up articles on your topic. Here is a brief overview of how to use Boolean operators and truncation:
- "AND" – use AND to link together search topics (gothic literature AND writers)
- "OR" – use OR to link together synonyms or like concepts (supernatural OR ghost story)
- "*" – use truncation to pull up the root of a word with variant endings (Enter in critic* to pull up items with the words critical, critic, criticism etc.)
- Quotation marks – When performing keyword searches use quotation marks to search for your keywords as an exact phrase (Type "gothic revival" to look for the exact phrase of: gothic revival. If you do not enclose your phrase with quotes the catalog will look for the term gothic and revival as separate words throughout the entire catalog record)
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Search the library catalog by keyword or subject heading to locate books in Geisel Library. Many English Criticism books are located on the Upper Level of the library, in the P–PZ section.
Examples of subject heading searches relevant to this course include:
- Supernatural in literature
- Supernatural – Fiction
- English fiction – Stories, plots
- American fiction – Stories, plots
- Short stories
- Superstitions
- Horror tales
- Horror tales, English – Criticism
- Horror tales, American
- Fantasy literature, American
- Gothic revival (Literature) – Great Britain
- Gothic revival (Literature) – United States
Examples of possible keyword searches:
- Science fiction and criticism
- Gothic and authors or writers
- Nathaniel Hawthorne and criticism
- Frankenstein and criticism or interpretation
Samples of General Collection books found using Subject and Keyword searches:
The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury
PS3503 .R167 Z94 2005
The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley
PR5398 .C36 2003
A Companion to the Gothic
PR830 .T3 C65 2000
The Handbook to Gothic Literature
PN3435 .H35 1998
Fantastic Odysseys: Selected Essays from the Twenty-second International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts
PN56 .F34 I58 2003
From Dickens to Dracula: Gothic, Economics, and Victorian Fiction
PR878 .E37 H68 2005
Gothic Reflections: Narrative Force in Nineteenth-Century Fiction
PR868 .T3 G37 2003
Poe's Children: Connections Between Tales of Terror and Detection
PS374 .D4 M26
Readings on the Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe
PS2642 .F43 R4 2001
If you searched the Geisel Library Catalog but could not locate a book on your topic try searching WorldCat, a database that allows you to search the collections of libraries throughout the United States. If you find a book that you want you can request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) by clicking on the ILL icon in the book's catalog record.
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Core English Research Databases
Literature Resource Center
Find biographical information on authors, as well as bibliographies, plot summaries, and literary criticism of their works. This resource also provides the full text of articles from more than 100 literary journals.
MLA International Bibliography
Produced by the Modern Language Association of America, this electronic index consists of bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. (1963–present) User Guide
Academic Search Premier
Gain access to full-text as well as indexing and abstracting for a wide range of journal titles covering business, social sciences, humanities, general science, and education.
Additional English Research Databases
America: History and Life
Provides abstracts to journal articles, book/media reviews, and dissertations with a focus on United States and Canadian history and culture from prehistoric times to the present. (1964–present)
Historical Abstracts
Provides abstracts to journal articles, books, and dissertations covering world history from 1450 to the present (excluding North America).
JSTOR
JSTOR contains the full text of back issues of major journals in the humanities and social sciences, including Annual Review of Sociology, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Philosophical Quarterly, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Coverage is generally from the beginning of publication to within 5 years of the current issue.
Project MUSE
"Project MUSE provides online, worldwide, institutional subscription access to the full text of more than 200 scholarly journals in arts and humanities, social sciences, and mathematics."
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Searching the Internet can yield a vast amount of information, but in terms of quality and reliability, your results may be uneven at best. The ease and speed with which individuals can publish information on the web, regardless of accuracy or quality makes it imperative that when doing research on the web you know how to evaluate the information you find. To learn more, see Judging What You Find.
If you locate books or articles on the Internet that you would like to view please check with a reference librarian to see if the items can be located in Geisel Library's print or electronic collection or through Interlibrary Loan.
Electronic Book Collections
Project Guttenberg
Project Guttenberg allows you to read ebook versions of novels for free on its website. Search by author, title, or genre to locate a book of your choosing. To search by genre, click the Bookshelf link on the left side of the screen.
Google Book Search
Google Books also lets you read digitized books on its website. To search for full text versions of works:
- Click Advanced Book Search
- Enter in your keywords
- Click the "Full View" radio button
By selecting Full View you are limiting your search to only those books that are available in full text in the Google Books collection. Full View books are limited to those works that are no longer copyright protected.
Websites
CLF: The Council for the Literature of the Fantastic
Use CLF to locate definitions and background information on literature of the fantastic.
Literary Gothic Page
The Literary Gothic Page is devoted to online resources concerned with literary Gothicism, including ghost stories, "classic" Gothic fiction (1764–1820), and related Gothic and super naturalist literature prior to 1960. Links to a great number of author pages.
Literature of the Fantastic
An online library with fantasy, science fiction, and horror works in the public domain, including works by Bierce, Blackwood, Chambers, Dunsany, O'Brien, LeFanu, Poe, Shelley, Stoker and others.
Fantastic Fiction
Use Fantastic Fiction to browse titles and authors of gothic, supernatural, science fiction, and horror novels.
Gothic Literature Page: The English Gothic Novel from 1764 to 1820
This web page contains an introduction to the Gothic novel, collected summaries, papers, critical and bibliographical information, and related sites.
The Sickly Taper
The Sickly Taper is a Gothic bibliographies website prepared by Gothic authority, Frederick S. Frank.
Selected Authors of Supernatural Horror
Includes links to resources on a select number of "Gothic" authors, including a very useful page on Ambrose Bierce.
Sublime Anxiety: The Gothic Family and the Outsider
This University of Virginia website provides an excellent introduction to Gothic literature. It includes a link to the Sadleir-Black Gothic Novel Collection.
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See the library's How To Cite Your Sources guide for resources on how to properly cite research materials. Always confirm the style required by your instructor.
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