This page includes a large number of databases that contain the full text of literary works. Some are focused on the literature of a particular time period, others on a particular region. Some include digitized copies of original manuscripts, others have the text reproduced in a more modern format.
All the databases in this group have broad collections, often including works in multiple forms. Collections are organized in various ways: geography, time period, ethnic group, or gender.
Fiction, poetry and essays from three continents, giving views of black women's struggles through time.
Poetry and fiction produced in the region during the 19th and 20th centuries, including rare and hard-to-find works written in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and various Creole languages.
Full text of the first editions of 875 American novels and short stories by authors such as Louisa May Alcott, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mark Twain.
Early English Books (EEBO) 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.
Searchable collection of prose, poetry, and drama composed by women writing in Mexico, Central America, and South America as well as essays by Latin American feminists and about the feminist movement.
Poetry, fiction, and over 450 plays written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latino authors working in the United States. The collection includes materials from the 19th century & the Chicano Renaissance to the present.
The nineteenth century holdings of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library from 1480 to the present day. Includes notable authors such as Bronte, Dickinson, Tennyson, and more.
Databases with the full text of plays and/or video recordings of productions of plays. Some may also include other theater-related materials.
Texts of more than 1000 dramas from Aeschylus to the present day, including student editions and scholarly works, as well as more than 500 theatre production photo images. Also includes Nick Hern Books Modern Plays.
A unique archive of almost every play submitted for license between 1737 and 1824, and hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays.
Poetry, fiction, and over 450 plays written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latino authors working in the United States. The collection includes materials from the 19th century & the Chicano Renaissance to the present.
This collection includes plays which represent the broadening field of Native American drama, theatrical scripts written by playwrights who are members of the indigenous nations of North America and the Native Playwrights' Newsletter.
Full text of plays written from colonial times to the present by women from the United States and Canada. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Almost a quarter of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays.
Contains plays with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays.
Collection of rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous Folger Shakespeare Library that tell the story of Shakespeare’s plays as they were performed in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and internationally, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.
In addition to the database below, many of the databases in the Broad Collections group also include poetry.
17th and 18th century poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.
Collection of the manuscript collections of Romantic poets. Includes the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, and Robert Southey.
Accounts of English travel abroad from 1550-1850, highlighting the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy. Also covers daily life in the eighteenth century, including everyday issues as transportation, money, communications, food and drink, health and sex. The material also covers European political and religious life, British diplomacy; life at court, and social customs on the Continent, and is an invaluable resource for the study of Europe’s urban spaces.
Manuscripts of some of the most important works of European travel writing from the later medieval period with a focus on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia.
