English Language and Literature 

Credo Reference - info
This database is ideal for the student looking for background information on a topic, a quick definition of an idea, or a jumping-off point for further research. It contains over 3 million entries from over 300 important titles published by a variety of publishers. Click on the Literature link to search across titles specifically pertaining to literary studies.

Titles within Credo Reference include:

A Dictionary of Literary Symbols
Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature
Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature
Dictionary of Shakespeare, Peter Collin Publishing
Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature
Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work
The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English
The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story
The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia of Modern Criticism and Theory

Literature Resource Center  - info
This database offers biographies, bibliographies and critical analyses of more than 120,000 authors from every age and their works in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism. Primary reviews published at the same time as important works are also included.

American National Biography - info
This reference work offers fairly detailed entries outlining the life, work and accomplishments of important American figures from any era.   Most entries provide a bibliography of the writer’s work and reputable titles for further biographical reading, and sometimes include citations for obituaries.   With over 17,000 entries , many, but not all, important American writers are included.  Search by author’s last name, or browse names alphabetically.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) - info
This resource acts as a reference guide to over 56,000 entries on important figures in all aspects of England's past and Great Britain's past, from the fourth century BC to the year 2001.

The Johns Hopkins Online Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism - info
This resource offers full-text articles on individual literary critics and theorists, critical and theoretical schools and movements, and the innovations of certain countries and historical periods. Also presents related persons and fields influential to literary theory and criticism. Each entry includes selective primary and secondary bibliographies.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) - info
The OED is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. OED traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources.