LibGuides: Historical Primary Sources Databases: Literature

Introduction to literature page

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.

Broad collections

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.

Black Women Writers This link opens in a new window
Fiction, poetry and essays from three continents, giving views of black women's struggles through time.
(Alexander Street Press)
Caribbean Literature This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
Early American Fiction 1789-1875 This link opens in a new window
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.
(Chadwyck-Healey/ProQuest)
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
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.
(Chadwyck-Healey/ProQuest)
Latin American Women Writers This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
Latino Literature This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
Literary Manuscripts Berg This link opens in a new window
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.
(Adam Matthew).
Perdita Manuscripts This link opens in a new window
Collection of manuscripts from early modern (1500-1700) women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form.

Drama

Databases with the full text of plays and/or video recordings of productions of plays. Some may also include other theater-related materials.

Drama Online This link opens in a new window
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
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Eighteenth Century Drama This link opens in a new window
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.
(Adam Matthew)
Latino Literature This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
North American Indian Drama This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
Twentieth Century North American Drama This link opens in a new window
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.
(Alexander Street Press)
Shakespeare in Performance This link opens in a new window
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.
(Adam Matthew)

Poetry

In addition to the database below, many of the databases in the Broad Collections group also include poetry.

Literary Manuscripts Leeds This link opens in a new window
17th and 18th Century Poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.
(Adam Matthew)
Romanticism: Life, Literature, and Landscape This link opens in a new window
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.
(Adam Matthew)

Travel Writing

Grand Tour This link opens in a new window
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.
(Adam Matthew)
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
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.
(Adam Matthew)
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window
Travel diaries written by 19th and 20th century American women covering a wide range of topics. Majority of travels were within the United States or to Great Britain, Europe, or East Asia. A few women traveled more broadly, visiting locations in Africa, India, the Middle East, and/or Central or South America.