Research Guides: Primary Sources: Finding Primary Sources in Literature

Primary Resources for Literature in the Jerry Falwell Library

America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Historic American newspapers providing primary sources for exploring American history, culture, and daily life from 1690 to the early 20th century
Black Short Fiction and Folklore: African, African American, and Diaspora This link opens in a new window
Works of short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African ancestry from the earliest times to the present, including materials from early literary magazines, archives, and the personal collections of the authors, many of which have never been previously published

For more information, here is a brief tutorial on using Black Short Fiction and Folklore
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Full-text periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth covering literature, philosophy, history, science, social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology, and architecture

For more information, here is a brief tutorial on using British Periodicals
Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot: The Critical Edition This link opens in a new window
Collected, uncollected, and unpublished essays, reviews, lectures, and commentaries by T. S. Eliot with textual edits, annotations, and cross-references
EEBO (Early English Books Online) This link opens in a new window
Extensive full-text collection of early English books, including titles by John Locke, Captain John Smith, William Shakespeare, and others

For more information, here is a brief tutorial on using EEBO
Emily Dickinson’s Correspondences This link opens in a new window
Full-text primary source documents that include digital scans of Dickinson’s poems and letters from her correspondence with her sister-in-law and primary confidante, Susan Dickinson

For more information, here is a brief tutorial on using Emily Dickinson’s Correspondences
Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period This link opens in a new window
Full-text volumes of poetry by approximately 50 Irish women written between 1768 and 1842 as well as biographical and critical essays prepared by leading scholars

For more information, here is a brief tutorial on using Irish Women Poets
Romantic Era Redefined This link opens in a new window
Full-text electronic collection of works focusing on the period between 1800 and 1830, including canonical and previously unrecognized poetry, prose, drama, letters, and diaries as well as political, philosophical, scientific, and sociological works from Britain, the British Empire, and North America as well as the full run of The Wordsworth Circle

For more information, here is a brief tutorial on using Romantic Era Redefined

Online Primary Sources for Literature

British Library Texts in Context
Curated collections of historical materials providing useful contexts for literary works. An excellent starting point for literary research.
Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.
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Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.
Europeana
Search, save and share art, books, films and music from thousands of cultural institutions
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Search, save and share art, books, films and music from thousands of cultural institutions
Google Books
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database
Hathi Trust
At HathiTrust, we are stewards of the largest digitized collection of knowledge allowable by copyright law.

Primary Sources: Finding Primary Sources in Literature

Primary Source Material in Literature

Primary Resources for Literature in the Jerry Falwell Library

Online Primary Sources for Literature