LibGuides: English: Key Resources

Literature and Criticism

Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window
Largest cross-searchable database of literature and criticism with over 355,000 full-text works of poetry, prose and drama in English, and the definitive online criticism and reference library.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Also includes: 34,000 research reports from more than 140 policy institutes on climate change, cybersecurity, energy policy, international relations, terrorism, and various public health issues. Primary sources from important and rare collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world including Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets and Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa. Thematic collections focusing on emerging areas of research includes Lives of Literature, Security Studies, and Sustainability.

Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias

Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window
Contains a steadily growing database of background information on classical and modern literature, written by specialists worldwide. It offers very good coverage of English, American, German and Russian literatures as well as substantial and increasing coverage of other regions.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
A wealth of facts, figures, definitions, and translations found in dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.
Green's Dictionary of Slang This link opens in a new window
Green’s Dictionary of Slang is the largest historical dictionary of English slang.

Shakespeare

Oxford Scholarly Editions Online This link opens in a new window
Access to complete text of more than 170 scholarly editions of material written between 1485 and 1660, including all of Shakespeare's plays and the poetry of John Donne.
Royal Shakespeare Company Collection This link opens in a new window
These high-definition, surround-sound recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays featuring the world’s best Shakespearean actors, like David Tennant, Sir Antony Sher, Paapa Essiedu, and Simon Russell Beale, and directors like Robin Lough and Dewi Humphrey.
Shakespeare in Performance This link opens in a new window
Access to rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous Folger Shakespeare Library.

Journals and Books: Multidisciplinary

Humanities Index This link opens in a new window
An international research database for arts and humanities, indexing articles from over 370 scholarly journals, weekly magazines, and quality newspapers from the UK, the US, and other English-speaking countries. Updated monthly, with coverage from 1962.
Subjects: Architecture, Art, Cultural Studies, Film, Gender studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Religion.
Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL) This link opens in a new window
Full text repository on Eastern Europe, its histories, languages and literatures, and its cultural, social and political realities. Access journals, ebooks and grey literature. UoS LIbrary does not subscribe to this resource, however, there is a large amount of Open Access content available. To access you will need to create an account.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Also includes: 34,000 research reports from more than 140 policy institutes on climate change, cybersecurity, energy policy, international relations, terrorism, and various public health issues. Primary sources from important and rare collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world including Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets and Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa. Thematic collections focusing on emerging areas of research includes Lives of Literature, Security Studies, and Sustainability.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
High quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a multidisciplinary abstract and citation database, which provides access to academic journals, books, conference proceedings, and patents from 1788–present.
Advanced Features: citation analysis, author profiles, journal metrics; data export and analysis, search alerts.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary abstract and citation database of academic journal articles, books and conference proceedings covering all subjects, dating back to 1900. Web of Science consists of multiple different databases including the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Features: citation analysis, researcher profiles, journal metrics, search alerts.

Historical Texts

Discovering Literature This link opens in a new window
Exploring the Romantic and Victorian periods. Access to the British Library's literary and historical collections including numerous original manuscripts, first editions and rare illustrations.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Fully searchable.
Early European Books Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a diverse array of printed sources from the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Eighteenth Century Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Rare journals printed between c. 1685 and c. 1815, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics include: colonial life; provincial and rural affairs; the French and American revolutions; reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe; political debates and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
Location Register Of English Literary Manuscripts and Letters This link opens in a new window
A searchable database of the manuscripts held at over 500 British and Irish repositories of all sizes, from the British Library to small-town museums. Includes manuscripts by literary authors of all genres, from major poets to minor science fiction writers and romantic novelists.
Oxford Scholarly Editions Online This link opens in a new window
Access to complete text of more than 170 scholarly editions of material written between 1485 and 1660, including all of Shakespeare's plays and the poetry of John Donne.
Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project This link opens in a new window
The largest collection of resources relating to Samuel Beckett, including manuscript material, correspondence, stage files relating to his plays, artwork and more.

Film and Theatre

Alexander Street Press Video Collection This link opens in a new window
Access to a large number of videos across a wide range of subject areas. The University does not subscribe to all the content within the collection.
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) This link opens in a new window
Allows the user to view or listen to over 1 million TV and radio programmes, record from 60+ channels, create clips, search transcripts, compile playlists and more. You will need to select log in via UK Federation, then select University of Sussex from the dropdown list. (New users will need to register their Sussex email address.)
Digital Theatre Plus This link opens in a new window
Offers streamed films of leading British theatre productions for educational use in schools, colleges and universities. Each production is supported by additional content, including interviews with the creative and production teams and written study guides.
National Theatre Collection This link opens in a new window
National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies.
Nineteenth Century American Drama: Popular Culture and Entertainment, 1820-1900 This link opens in a new window
Includes plays that range over the most popular genres of its 80-year time span. There are comedies and melodramas, Revolutionary and Civil War dramas, plays with all-women and all-black casts, temperance plays, and plays for children for school and home entertainment, as well as many plays written by women.
Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project This link opens in a new window
The largest collection of resources relating to Samuel Beckett, including manuscript material, correspondence, stage files relating to his plays, artwork and more.

Magazines and Periodicals

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
American periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals. Combines collections from American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) and American Periodicals from the Center for Research (APCRL).
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Covers the events, lives, values and themes that shaped the 19th century world. It's mainly based on the repositories of the British Library and the National Library of Scotland.
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900 This link opens in a new window
Now replaced by C19: 19th Century Index
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains archives of the foremost titles of consumer magazines aimed at a female readership, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. In combination, the publications cover topics such as family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture.

Newspapers

British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource of regional and local newspapers in Britain between the mid 18th and 20th centuries. Supports research in History, Literature, Victorian Studies, Genealogy, Fine Arts, Finance/Economics, Political Science, and more. Access to parts 1-4, covering titles from 1732 to 1950.
British Newspapers 1600-1950 This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive digital historic newspaper archive. Includes 17-18th Century Burney Collection, 19th Century British Newspapers, 3 million pages of historic newspapers, news books & ephemera, National & Regional papers from British Isles.
Guardian and Observer Historical Archive, 1821-2003 This link opens in a new window
A searchable digital archive containing articles from the first issues in 1821 for the Guardian and 1791 for the Observer.
Nexis This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive newspaper database, updated daily, providing full text access to all UK national newspapers, plus regional newspapers, international news providers and a number of trade journals and magazines.
Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Contains full runs of 48 influential national and regional newspapers representing different political and cultural segments of the 19th century British society.
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2012 This link opens in a new window
Searchable, facsimile reproduction of TLS, 1902-2012, including identification of anonymous contributors.

Psychology and Psychoanalysis

PsycArticles This link opens in a new window
Access to full-text psychology publications covering the disciplines of Human Physiology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Educational Psychology, and more.
Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP) This link opens in a new window
A freely available discovery tool covering psychoanalytic literature. PEP supports with the discovery of literature related to psychoanalysis. To access the full text you will need to search for the relevant title on Library Search. Key content available in the library includes: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud and key psychoanalytic journals including The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, The International Review of Psycho-Analysis, The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, and Contemporary Psychoanalysis.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Access to international literature in psychology and related disciplines.

Greek and Latin Literature

Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 520 volumes of Latin, Greek and English texts, aiming to be a virtual library of all that is important in Greek and Latin Literature: epic and lyric poetry, history, travel, philosophy and oratory, medical writers and mathematicians, and the Church Fathers who make particular use of pagan culture.

Corpora

Coronavirus Corpus This link opens in a new window
The Coronavirus Corpus is designed to be the definitive record of the social, cultural, and economic impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020 and beyond.
English-Corpora This link opens in a new window
Online interface to the linguistic corpora created and maintained at Brigham Young University.
Once you've logged into your Sussex account, the site may say 'not logged in'. Nevertheless, you should be able to use it without registering further. The person-shaped log-in icon at the top of the page should be yellow, not red.
Enhanced Electronic Grammars Online This link opens in a new window
Features comprehensive descriptions of languages from around the world.