Librarian for English
Online Resources of Possible Interest
The Women's Print History Project (WPHP) "is a comprehensive bibliographical database of women’s contributions to print for the long eighteenth century, one of the most convulsive periods in both women’s and print history. We collect detailed information about books that women were involved in producing, not just as authors, but also as printers, publishers, booksellers, editors, compilers, translators, engravers, illustrators, and composers."
Price One Penny (POP): Cheap Literature, 1837-1860 is a database created by Marie Léger-St-Jean at the University of Cambridge. It contains a database of early Victorian penny fiction. Check here to see if your text is listed. If so, you may be able to find publication information for your work. You may also find out if your text was plagiarized from another or if it was adapted into another art form.
The Gothic Archive is an online digital collection of late eighteenth and nineteenth-century British Gothic chapbooks and related materials, hosted at Marquette University. Look for links to summaries and supplemental materials as well.
Look for information about publishers, printers, or illustrators by searching The British Museum using the Explore the Collection feature (use the drop down to choose Related Person/Organisation). A successful search will bring you to images from the collection. Choose an item from the collection by that person and then on the left, click on the link to the person's name, and you will hopefully jump to biographical information about them.
The resources on this guide will help you research the publication and reception history of your Gothic text and trace its literary and scholarly influence. Find the Project Gothic website for the class at https://gothic.lib.virginia.edu/.
Researching the publication history of a book
Virgo is UVA Library's catalog. Use your book's Virgo record to learn more about what the library knows about the text. Also search Virgo for:
- other editions of your book held at the University of Virginia or through one of our database collections,
- other works held at UVA that were written by the author of your book
- books on the Gothic that might discuss or refer to your book
WorldCat is a vast union catalog, containing listings of books, journals, manuscripts, and other materials in thousands of libraries worldwide. Searching WorldCat may help you to find:
- subsequent (or earlier) editions of your work
- translations of your work
- other works by the book's author or illustrator
- archival material related to the author
If you find an item in WorldCat that the UVA library doesn't own, you can request it through interlibrary loan (note that some materials, such as rare books, cannot be loaned).
HathiTrust is a digital preservation repository which provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources, totaling nearly 11 million titles. Check Hathi for possible other editions or copies of your book or for possible booksellers' catalogs that mention your book. Log in as a University of Virginia user in order to have access to more content.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) is a global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long 19th century. Content consists of monographs, newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, etc. in both Western and non-Western languages. (Listed in A-Z databases under 19th Century)
Researching the reception history of a book
18th and 19th century periodical and newspaper databases are great sources for finding contemporary reviews of gothic novels, as well as bookseller's advertisements. Stories were also sometimes serialized in periodicals or papers, so you may find your tale printed in a periodical publication as well. Five of the most comprehensive databases of this type are listed below. For a list of other newspaper and periodical collections of possible interest, see the Primary Sources - Find Historical Newspapers, Periodicals, Diaries, & More tab of the English Language & Literature Guide.
British Library Newspapers includes newspapers sourced from the extensive holdings of the British Library. It includes over 160 newspaper titles that span the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.
British Periodicals includes hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, reproduced in high-resolution facsimile page images. The periodicals cover literature and the arts, as well as philosophy, history, science, and social science
Periodicals Archive Online allows you to search the full text of nearly 400 international humanities and social sciences journals published from 1770 to the 1990s.
19th Century UK Periodicals, Part 1 includes British periodicals on a range of subjects, with a particular focus on women's and children's publications. There is a small amount of overlap with the British Periodicals database.
Times Digital Archive: 1785-2014 The full text of the Times of London newspaper from 1785-2014.
Finding information about an author, illustrator, or publisher
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) provides entries on the lives of British persons from the earliest times to the end of the 20th century. IMPORTANT: our access is limited so please click the Sign Out link at the bottom of the page and close the window when you are finished.
Literature Resource Center (LRC) includes the full text of important literary reference works. Among them are articles from the Dictionary of Literary Biography, which is a terrific source for finding detailed biographies and profiles of authors, illustrators, publishers, and other literary figures. Run a search for a person's name and then choose the Biographies tab, if there are articles available (though other articles - critical or otherwise -- could be useful, too!)
The World Biographical Information System (WBIS) Online is the most comprehensive biographical database available, providing biographical information on over 6 Million people from the 8th century B.C. to the present. Included are 8.5 Million digital facsimile articles from biographical reference works.
Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles provides entries on women authors' lives and writing careers, contextual material, timelines, sets of internal links, and bibliographies. Interacting with these materials creates a dynamic inquiry from any number of perspectives into centuries of women's writing.
- The British Literary Book Trade, 1700-1820 byCall Number: E-resource available through Literature Resource Center (Also available in print, Ivy PN466 .D52 vol. 154)ISBN: 0810357151Publication Date: 1995Chronicles the period of transition for the British book trade that saw the emergence of some great manes of the trade, but was also a time when publishing firms most often were still controlled by single individuals who made judgments based on literary merit, political alliances and pressures, friendships, or the prospect of high profits.
- British Literary Publishing Houses, 1820-1880 byCall Number: E-resource available through Literature Resource Center (Also available in print, Ivy PN466 .D52 vol. 106)ISBN: 0810345862Publication Date: 1991The main essay on each publishing house gives an historical discussion of the development of the business and is supported by photographs.
Finding secondary scholarship about your book
The MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) indexes the broadest range of resources about literature in all languages. If a literary study of your novel exists, you will likely find it here. It is not a full-text resource, meaning that you can only search the description of an article, rather than the text of the article. To get the full text of an article, click on “Find article @ UVa Libraries”, or look up the journal title in VIRGO.
ProQuest One Literature contains 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, and dissertations. It also includes more than 500,000 primary works – including rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings.
JSTOR includes older issues of scholarly journals, from their beginnings to 3-5 years ago, so this may be another good database to look for articles related to your novel or its author. Articles in JSTOR should be full-text, if we subscribe to the journal.
Google Books contains searchable facsimiles of the books Google has scanned from libraries and publishers. Searching for the title of your novel in Google Books may return a full-text copy of the novel itself, as well as references to the novel in scholarly works, bibliographies, bookseller's cataloges, etc.
HathiTrust includes material scanned by the Google Books partner institutions (including U.Va.) plus other digitized materials from those institutions. Features better bibliographic data and better treatment of multi-volume works than Google Books.
Print Books and Ebooks of Possible Interest
A Gothic Bibliography by Call Number: Clemons Reserves Z2014 .F4 S9 1941. Also in Special CollectionsPublication Date: 1941Also Available online through the Internet Archive
1941 edition: https://archive.org/details/gothicbibliograp00summ
1964 edition (available for 1 hour use online): https://archive.org/details/
gothicbibliograp0000summ
This is a bibliography of Gothic works, authors, etc. that may be helpful in finding an edition of a novel/chapbook or more information about the novel or author.
The Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel by Call Number: Ebook. Also available in Shannon, Ivy, and Special CollectionsPublication Date: 1964 (1938)Includes chapter on "The publishers and the circulating libraries" and others of possible interest.
The First Gothics: A Critical Guide to the English Gothic Novel by Call Number: Clemons Reserves Z2014 .H67 F7 1987ISBN: 9780824085018Publication Date: 1987- Shilling Shockers of the Gothic School: A Study of Chapbook Romances by Call Number: Clemons Reserves PR13 .H28 1932 no.5Publication Date: 1932
Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-1830 by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to access (3 users at a time)ISBN: 9781786836724Publication Date: 2021This book breaks new ground surveying the origins of the gothic chapbook, its publishers, and authors, in order to conclusively establish the impact these pamphlets had on the development of the gothic genre. Considered the illegitimate offspring of the gothic novel, the lowly chapbook flooded the marketplace in the late eighteenth century, creating a separate and distinct secondary market for tales of terror. The trade was driven by a handful of individuals who were booksellers and dealers, circulating library proprietors, stationers, and small publishers who produced well over four hundred chapbooks, bluebooks and shilling shockers containing gothic tales from magazines, redactions of popular novels, extractions of entire inset tales, and original tales of terror. This study responds to the urgent and pressing need to contextualize the gothic chapbook in ascertaining a more concise and comprehensive view of the entire gothic genre.
Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to access. Also available in print in Shannon Reference Room and Special CollectionsISBN: 9780313305009Publication Date: 2001Includes chapter - " Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks, and Short Stories in the Magazines (1790-1820)" by Frederick S. Frank.- Horror Literature: A Core Collection and Reference Guide by Call Number: Special Collections Z2014.H67 H67 1981 (print copy on order for Reserves)ISBN: 9780835213417Publication Date: 1981Looking specifically for the chapter by Frederick S. Frank on "The Gothic Romance, 1762-1820"? Email Sherri for help.
Varieties of Female Gothic Vol 2, Street Gothic: Female Gothic Chapbooks by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in Virgo (also have full 6 volume set in print)ISBN: 9780429349911Publication Date: 2016This text offers scholarly and critical editions of significant novels of Gothic fiction from the Romantic period. It illustrates the various forms of female Gothic literature as a vehicle for representing the modern forms of subjectivity, or complex and authentic inward experience and identity. Authors included are Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Sophia Lee, Charlotte Smith, Ann Radcliffe, and Sarah Wilkinson. Introduction about female gothic chapbooks might be helpful in general.
The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800-1835: Exhuming the Trade by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in Virgo. Print copies also available in Clemons and Special CollectionsISBN: 1403995826Publication Date: 2005To better understand and contextualize the twilight of the Gothic genre during the 1820s and 1830s, The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800-1835: Exhuming the Trade examines the disreputable aspects of the Gothic trade from its horrid bluebooks to the desperate hack writers who created the short tales of terror. From the Gothic publishers to the circulating libraries, this study explores the conflict between the canon and the twilight, and between the disreputable and the moral.
How the Wind Sits: The History of Henry and Ann Lemoine, Chapbook Writers and Publishers of the Late Eighteenth Century by Call Number: Clemons Reserves Z280 .B43 2017ISBN: 9781387057269Publication Date: 2017During the 18th century, not all books were found in bookstores or libraries. In London, itenerate book salesmen wandered the streets hawking their wares. The books they sold were cheap and often poorly printed, but they represented the beginnings of popular reading among the growing lower classes. Henry and Ann Lemoine were among the most prolific writers and publishers of street literature in the late eighteenth-century and theirs is a story of poverty, greed, prison, and female empowerment.- The Minerva Press, 1790-1820 by Call Number: Clemons Reserves Z232 .M66 B6 1939. Also available in Special Collections.Publication Date: 1939
Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature by Call Number: E-book, Access through link in Virgo recordISBN: 9780810872288Publication Date: 2012Literary fashions come and go, but some hang around longer than others, like Gothic literature which has existed ever since The Castle of Otranto in 1764. During this long while, it has spread from England, to the rest of Great Britain, and across to the continent, and off to America and Australia, filling in the gaps more recently. Most of it is in English, but hardly all, and it has adopted all styles, from romanticism, to modernism, to postmodernism and even adjusted to feminist and queer literature, and science fiction. We have all, read some Gothic tales or if not read then seen them in the cinema, since they adapt well to film treatment, and it would be hard to find anyone who has not heard of ghosts and vampires, let alone Count Dracula and Frankenstein. On the other hand, some of us are inveterate Gothic fans, reading one book or story after the other. The Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature follows this long and winding path, first in an extensive chronology and then a useful introduction which explains the nature of Gothic and shows how it has evolved. Obviously, the dictionary section has entries on major writers, and some of the best-known works, but also on geographical variants like Irish, Scottish or Russian Gothic and Female Gothic, Queer Gothic and Science Fiction. This is provided in over 200 often substantial and always intriguing entries. More can be found in a detailed bibliography, including general works but also more specialized ones on different styles and genres, and also specific authors.
The Gothic Novel 1790--1830: Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to access. Also available in print, Shannon PR868 .T3 T7ISBN: 9780813155135Publication Date: 2014A research guide for specialists in the Gothic novel, the Romantic movement, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel, and popular culture, this work contains summaries of more than two hundred novels, reputed to be Gothic, published in English between 1790 and 1830. Also included are indexes of titles and characters and an extensive index of characteristic objects, motifs, and themes that recur in the novels -- such as corpses, bloody and otherwise, dungeons, secret passageways, filicide, fratricide, infanticide, matricide, patricide, and suicide.The novels described, including those by such writers as Charlotte Dacre, Louisa Sidney Stanhope, Regina Maria Roche, Charles Maturin, and Mary Shelley, are for the most part out of print and circulation and are unavailable except in rare book rooms. Thus this book provides the researcher with ready access to information that would otherwise be difficult to obtain.
A New Companion to the Gothic by Call Number: E-book, Access through link in Virgo recordISBN: 9781405198066Publication Date: 2012The thoroughly expanded and updated New Companion to the Gothic, provides a series of stimulating insights into Gothic writing, its history and genealogy. The addition of 12 new essays and a section on 'Global Gothic' reflects the direction Gothic criticism has taken over the last decade. Many of the original essays have been revised to reflect current debates. Offers comprehensive coverage of criticism of the Gothic and of the various theoretical approaches it has inspired and spawned. Features important and original essays by leading scholars in the field.
The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762-1800 by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to access. Also available in print, Shannon PR858 .S85 C58 1995ISBN: 9780511518997Publication Date: 1995A genre of supernatural fiction was among the more improbable products of the Age of Enlightenment. This book charts the troubled entry of the supernatural into fiction, and questions the historical reasons for its growing popularity in the late eighteenth century. Beginning with the notorious case of the Cock Lane ghost, a performing poltergeist who became a major attraction in London in 1762, and with Garrick's spellbinding and paradigmatic performance as the ghost-seeing Hamlet, it moves on to look at the Gothic novels of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, M. G. Lewis, and others, in unexpected new lights. The central thesis concerns the connection between fictions of the supernatural and the growth of consumerism: not only are ghost stories successful commodities in the rapidly commercialising book market, they are also considered here as reflections on the disruptive effects of this socio-economic transformation.
The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction by Call Number: E-book, Access through link in Virgo record (use Cambridge Companions). Also available in print, Ivy PR830 .T3 C36 2002.ISBN: 0521794668Publication Date: 2002Gothic as a form of fiction-making has played a major role in Western culture since the late eighteenth century. In this volume, fourteen world-class experts on the Gothic provide thorough and revealing accounts of this haunting-to-horrifying type of fiction from the 1760s (the decade of The Castle of Otranto, the first so-called 'Gothic story') to the end of the twentieth century (an era haunted by filmed and computerized Gothic simulations). Along the way, these essays explore the connections of Gothic fictions to political and industrial revolutions, the realistic novel, the theatre, Romantic and post-Romantic poetry, nationalism and racism from Europe to America, colonized and post-colonial populations, the rise of film and other visual technologies, the struggles between 'high' and 'popular' culture, changing psychological attitudes towards human identity, gender and sexuality, and the obscure lines between life and death, sanity and madness. The volume also includes a chronology and guides to further reading.
