LibGuides: English: which resources do I use?: Literary figures

Resources

If you are looking for information on a particular literary figure, you could try searching within these resources:

Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window Biographies of major and minor writers; scholarly descriptions of texts written by these authors and critical essays on literary, cultural and historical matters. Covers English, American, German, Russian, Italian, French and Classical literatures, with increasing coverage of other world literature.
Literary Studies This link opens in a new window This collection covers British and American literature including Literary manuscripts, rare printed works, and personal papers of a range of leading literary figures, as well as unique access to rare and obscure literary texts and genres.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window Online reference work for information about people who have helped shape British history, life and culture. The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors.
Gale Literature This link opens in a new window Search across a range of literary databases to find commentary and criticism, author biographies, literary works, topic overviews and more.
ProQuest One Literature - Incorporating Literature Online This link opens in a new window
Browse or search for particular authors. As well as browsing by name, you can browse by literary period, movement or literature collections. More information below.

We have some collections dedicated to particular individuals:

Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online This link opens in a new window Fully searchable version of the complete works of Ben Jonson, with accompanying textual and contextual materials.
Complete prose of T.S. Eliot This link opens in a new window
Jane Austen Manuscripts Online This link opens in a new window Online access to the collective works of Jane Austen’s fiction manuscripts.
Samuel Beckett Manuscript Digital Project This link opens in a new window The purpose of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project is to reunite the manuscripts of Samuel Beckett's works in a digital way, and to facilitate genetic research: the project brings together digital facsimiles of documents that are now preserved in different holding libraries, and adds transcriptions of Beckett's manuscripts, tools for bilingual and genetic version comparison, a search engine, and an analysis of the textual genesis of his works.

Literary Encyclopedia

Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window Biographies of major and minor writers; scholarly descriptions of texts written by these authors and critical essays on literary, cultural and historical matters. Covers English, American, German, Russian, Italian, French and Classical literatures, with increasing coverage of other world literature.

The Literary Encyclopedia contains:

biographies of writers, philosophers, scientists, artists and historical figures
scholarly descriptions of texts written by these authors
descriptive and critical essays on literary, cultural and historical matters, providing background and contextual information

You can search or browse for people or works, or use the Advanced search option to explore the encyclopedia.

Go to Content > Browse > People

Run a search for the person you are interested in. Make sure you select All.

If available, click on the Works list to see material by that writer.

Use the links on the left hand pane to find out more information, such as contemporaries - authors active in the same period of time and country as the author you are looking at.

Go to Content > Browse > Works

Run a search for the literary work you are interested in. Make sure you select All Articles:

You will need to create an account in order to use the bookshelf feature of The Literary Encyclopedia.

Go to My Account
Click on View Bookshelves
You can add new shelves and share them with other people if you wish to. Click on the Open button, type in the email address and click send.

Gale Literature

Literary biographies in Gale Literature

Gale Literature: Person Search
Tick the LGBTQ+ filter box to find results for people within the LGBTQ+ community, people who were gender nonconforming, or people of historical significance to this community.

Search by author using the Person Search link on the toolbar on the main Gale Literature page:

Altiernatively, click on What's Inside and use the following resources to find out about authors and influential literary figures.

Biographies and bibliographies of thousands of U.S. and international authors.

Explore the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.

Browse original scholarly essays on authors from around the world.

Examine the lives and works of children and young adult authors and illustrators.

In-depth critical introductions to the lives and works of major writers. Includes influences of literary movements.

Proquest One Literature: browse authors

As well as being able to search for an author by name, you can browse authors by literary period or literary movement.

For example, view author pages relating to the Victorian period: