L743: Victorian Heretics

Please also check the Victorian Studies page for a more complete listing of 19th century resources (?pageId=1100). 

To use the resources described here, use the links in the column to the right.

The first several databases are most useful for historical research.  America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts are bibliographic databases that comprise scholarly articles about ?history.?  You can limit your searches to specific time periods.  I would suggest that if you use one then you should go ahead and use both.  Your topic might be treated differently in one than in the other.

 

The newspaper resources contain full-text newspaper articles.  Be aware, however, that they will not always bring back ?extras? such as advertisements.  Early American Newspapers, however, will let you search the ads.


The standard literary databases follow the newspapers.  MLA and ABELL together cover literary criticism writtne from the 1920s to the present covering all time periods and genres.  Between them there is roughly 30-40% overlap, so it is always a good idea to look at both.

 

British Fiction, 1800?1829: A Database of Production, Circulation, and Reception--While it offers only a narrow window from the early 19th century, it can be useful for bibliographic information and early reviews.  
             http://www.british-fiction.cf.ac.uk/

"Allows users to examine bibliographical records of 2,272 works of fiction written by approximately 900 authors, along with a large number of contemporary materials (including anecdotal records, circulating-library catalogues, newspaper advertisements, reviews, and subscription lists)."

For contextualizing a work of literature in its point in history or culture, you might want to try databases that index 19th century periodicals.

*Nineteenth Century Masterfile

Includes Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (major US and British publications, 1802-1907) and Index to Legal Periodical Literature (1786-1922).

 

Also: Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900 (print and cd-rom in Reference). Useful as a supplement to Poole's Index, this index is searched by author, and includes bibliographies and tables of contents. 

 

*Readers' Guide Retrospective

Index to popular U.S. magazines, coverage back to 1889

*Periodical Contents Index

Index to thousand of scholarly journals in English and other western European languages, with coverage back to first issue of journal.

 

Periodicals Archive Online 
             An archive of hundreds of digitized journals in the arts, humanities, and scoial sciences.

Lexis-Nexis
             Excellent resource for legal history--US. 

ATLA
             A religious studies database that might be of use for some of the topics the class is pursuing.

PsychInfo
             Coverage dates back to the late 1800s--another resource that might prove useful for some of the topics.