Seeley G. Mudd Library, Lawrence University

Seeley G. Mudd Library, Lawrence University

English 455: Romanticism

The books on reserve for English 455 will be helpful for your project. Be sure to take a look at Course Reserves in LUCIA.

Useful Titles from the Library

Listed in call number order; remember that you may want to browse the shelves in the call number ranges of interest to you.

Who Was When?: A Dictionary of Contemporaries.
Ref. CT103 .D4 1976

The Timetables of History: A Historical Linkage of People and Events.
Ref. [q.] D11 .G78 2005

Chronology of World History. 4 vols. H.E.L. Mellersh.
Ref. D11 .M39 1999

The People's Chronology : A Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present.
Ref. D11 .T83 1994

The Oxford Companion to British History.
Ref. DA34 .O93 1997

Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain, 1780-1830s.
Ref. DA 529 .E53 1992

Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850.
Ref. [q.] NX452.5.R64 E53 2004

Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia.
Ref. PN41 .B4 1996

A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory.
Ref. PN 41 .C83 1998

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory : Approaches, Scholars, Terms.
Ref. PN81 .E63 1993

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism.
Ref. PN81 .J554 2005

New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
Ref. PN 1021 .N39 1993

Oxford Companion to English Literature.
Ref. PR 19 .D73 1985

The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors.
Ref. PR83 .M73 1959 (see especially vols. IV and V)

The Oxford Chronology of English Literature.
Ref. [q.] Z2011 .O98 2002

Guide to British Poetry Explication.
Ref. Z2014.P7 M34 1991

Online:

Literature Resource Center.
Use the Author search or the Advanced search. The title search doesn't always find everything you might want to see. In addition to biographical information, includes material from the Dictionary of Literary Biography series, Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, and Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, and more.

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Biographical Information

Biography and Genealogy Master Index.
"A comprehensive index to nearly 12 million biographical sketches in more than 2700 volumes and editions of current and retrospective reference books, covering both contemporary and historical figures throughout the world." Available electronically for Lawrence campus researchers.

The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia.
Contains over 15,000 alphabetically arranged entries; of international scope. Special sections labeled Ready Reference, Connections, and Contemporaries are provided to set the historical contexts for important persons.
Ref. CT103 .C26 1994

Dictionary of National Biography. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds. 22 vols. plus decennial supplements.
The essays in this dictionary are about deceased persons of British or Irish origins who played major roles in British history. Bibliographies are included in many of the entries. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the online version of the DNB, and provides multiple search options for nearly 50,000 biographies.
DA 28 .D4
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

To find biographical books about a certain person, search in LUCIA, for the person using Subject begins with. Browse through the subject headings to find the subheading which corresponds to your specific interests. Be alert when searching non-western names or names of rulers, as you may need to use varying forms of these names. Many times, LUCIA has cross-references for these.

For autobiographical books by and about a certain person, search in LUCIA for persons as Author. Be sure to consult the library's guide on Biographical Information for further ideas and information.

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Finding Books

To find items owned by the library, search LUCIA. To find secondary sources on your topic, try using the Subject begins with search, for example, romanticism. LUCIA will list other subject headings (and subheadings) which may be of interest. For advanced research you should consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH, a guide to the terms commonly used in catalogs like ours. The LCSH can be found on top of the Ready Reference shelves behind the reference desk on the first floor of the library.

Some other subject headings of interest include:

To combine terms for a different kind of search, try a Keyword Anywhere search. In keyword searching, LUCIA will look for the terms you specify anywhere in the important areas of the cataloging records, and display a list of those records. Try a search like romanticism and women. You might want to try searching for some of the terms you find in the LCSH.

Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system which organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.

Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. See a reference librarian if you need help.

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Finding Articles

The best index to use will depend on your topic. Be sure to check the Electronic Resources page for other options, as only a few are listed below. Two of our resources, JSTOR and Project MUSE provide complete full text. In addition to the titles listed here, see also the list of databases for Humanities available from the library.

Essential: these should be among your starting points for finding advanced materials.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature. 1939- .
Ref. Z 2011 .M69

MLA International Bibliography. 1963-
A leading source for the field of literary studies. Wide ranging index to just about anything of a scholarly nature related to literature and language.

General and Multidisciplinary Indexes: include citations and some full text of materials from a broad variety of fields including literature and history. Some include current reviews and news articles.

Academic OneFile
A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics. Includes full-text articles, many with images. 1980 - present; updated daily.

EBSCOhost.
Follow the link for EBSCOhost Web. EBSCOhost provides a single Web source for multiple databases; you might want to select the Academic Search Elite. Contains broad and specialized coverage of academic and general periodicals.

Once you have a citation for an article on your topic, try the SFX button button to see if that particular article is available. If you don't find it, you can submit a request for interlibrary loan (ILL) of a copy of the article: ILL takes about 7-10 days, so plan ahead. See the library's Interlibrary Loan page for more information.

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Bibliographies and General Guides to Research

Literary Research Guide : An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. James L. Harner.
Ref. Z2011 .H34 2002

A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students : English and American Literature. Nancy L. Baker and Nancy Huling.
Ref. PR56 .B34 2000

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Web Resources

Lawrence resources:

Internet Resources for English
Selected by the librarians here at Lawrence.

Resources elsewhere:

Romantic Chronology
A searchable and browsable chronology. Dates range from the mid 1600's through mid 1800's.

Romantic Circles
"Romantic Circles is a refereed scholarly Website devoted to the study of Romantic-period literature and culture."

Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net (RaVoN)
an international refereed electronic journal devoted to British nineteenth-century literature.

Voice of the Shuttle
One of the leading web pages for research in the humanities. Resources on the Romantics are extensive.

Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:

It's important to think carefully about any information you find in any format, and to evaluate resources for their accuracy, applicability, and so forth. Evaluation of web resources is especially important. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources or the library's Web Wise Guide to Searching. You can often find out a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.

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Style Manuals

Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.

Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
The guide for any academic papers written in the literatures and languages.
RRef. LB2369 .G53 2003

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About Research on Romanticism

Your sources must be fully documented in any written work you produce. It may help to look at the information on style before you start your research, so that you will have all the required documentation at hand when you need it. Then as you write, go back to the resources on style for details on the exact format of your citations.

The sources listed in this guide were chosen for the broad coverage they provide. Direct links are provided to Internet resources and searchable databases, as well as links to LUCIA, the library's online catalog. Be sure to check the library's Electronic Resources page regularly to see new databases and indexes; some of these will only be available to users on the Lawrence campus. Also, you may want to take a look at guides on related topics from the Library Research Guides page.

Evaluating the resources you find is an essential part of the research process. See this guide to hints on evaluation of books and articles and this guide to evaluating Internet resources.

As always, if you have any questions be sure to ask a Reference Librarian.

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Definitions of terms and abbreviations:

Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready Reference, shelved behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and M class scores; at end of classes in other collections

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