English Literature Research Areas
18th- & 19th-Century British Literature
From the English Department:
The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century group encourages students to explore topics across more than one century. Students can define the temporal limits of their research in ways that most productively engage the subjects under investigation.
Students are encouraged to draw on the resources of the Center for the Book, which, in conjunction with the splendid eighteenth- and nineteenth-century holdings in the Special Collections of the University of Iowa's Main Library, provides material means for understanding print innovations ranging from the hand-press production of the early novel to the Victorian typography of William Morris.
Two English Ph.D. students in English are selected each year to attend the week-long Dickens Universe summer seminar held at the University of California at Santa Cruz the first week of August. The University of Iowa is one of over thirty international research universities that are members of the Dickens Project.
Collections and Companions
Click on the "i" info icon after each book title to view a brief description about the following books from the University of Iowa Libraries' catalog:
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Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture
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This guide to eighteenth-century literature and culture provides students with the ideal introduction to literature and its context from 1688-1789, including: the historical, cultural and intellectual background including the expansion of cultural production and the growth of "print culture"; major writers, genres and groups; concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism; an overview of key critical approaches; a chronology mapping historical events and literary works; and a guide to further reading, including websites and electronic resources.
ISBN: 9780826485649Publication Date: 2008-03-24 -
A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture
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A Companion to the Eighteenth-century Novel furnishes readers with a sophisticated vision of the eighteenth-century novel in its political, aesthetic, and moral contexts. An up-to-date resource for the study of the eighteenth-century novel Furnishes readers with a sophisticated vision of the eighteenth-century novel in its political, aesthetic, and moral context Foregrounds those topics of most historical and political relevance to the twenty-first century Explores formative influences on the eighteenth-century novel, its engagement with the major issues and philosophies of the period, and its lasting legacy Covers both traditional themes, such as narrative authority and print culture, and cutting-edge topics, such as globalization, nationhood, technology, and science Considers both canonical and non-canonical literature
ISBN: 9781405101578Publication Date: 2005-12-23 -
English Literature, 1830-1914
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The nineteenth century witnessed unprecedented expansion in the reading public and an explosive growth in the number of books and newspapers produced to meet its demands. These specially commissioned essays examine not only the full range and variety of texts that entertained and informed the Victorians, but also the boundaries of Victorian literature: the links and overlap with Romanticism in the 1830s, and the roots of modernism in the years leading up to the First World War. The Companion demonstrates how science, medicine and theology influenced creative writing and emphasizes the importance of the visual in painting, book illustration and in technological innovations from the kaleidoscope to the cinema. Essays also chart the complex and fruitful interchanges with writers in America, Europe and the Empire, highlighting the geographical expansion of literature in English. This Companion brings together the most important aspects of this prolific and popular period of English literature.
ISBN: 9780521882880Publication Date: 2010-01-28 -
A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry
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A COMPANION TO & EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY A COMPANION TO & EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY Edited by Christine Gerrard This wide-ranging Companion reflects the dramatic transformation that has taken place in the study of eighteenth-century poetry over the past two decades. New essays by leading scholars in the field address an expanded poetic canon that now incorporates verse by many women poets and other formerly marginalized poetic voices. The volume engages with topical critical debates such as the production and consumption of literary texts, the constructions of femininity, sentiment and sensibility, enthusiasm, politics and aesthetics, and the growth of imperialism. The Companion opens with a section on contexts, considering eighteenth-century poetry's relationships with such topics as party politics, religion, science, the visual arts, and the literary marketplace. A series of close readings of specific poems follows, ranging from familiar texts such as Pope's The Rape of the Lock to slightly less well-known works such as Swift's "Stella" poems and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Town Eclogues. Essays on forms and genres, and a series of more provocative contributions on significant themes and debates, complete the volume. The Companion gives readers a thorough grounding in both the background and the substance of eighteenth-century poetry, and is designed to be used alongside David Fairer and Christine Gerrard's Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (3rd edition, 2014).
ISBN: 9781118702291Publication Date: 2014-02-10 -
The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science
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Tracing the continuities and trends in the complex relationship between literature and science in the long nineteenth century, this companion provides scholars with a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date foundation for research in this field. In intellectual, material and social terms, the transformation undergone by Western culture over the period was unprecedented. Many of these changes were grounded in the growth of science. Yet science was not a cultural monolith then any more than it is now, and its development was shaped by competing world views. To cover the full range of literary engagements with science in the nineteenth century, this companion consists of twenty-seven chapters by experts in the field, which explore crucial social and intellectual contexts for the interactions between literature and science, how science affected different genres of writing, and the importance of individual scientific disciplines and concepts within literary culture. Each chapter has its own extensive bibliography. The volume as a whole is rounded out with a synoptic introduction by the editors and an afterword by the eminent historian of nineteenth-century science Bernard Lightman.
ISBN: 9781472429872Publication Date: 2017-05-23 -
The Edinburgh Companion to Fin de Si裬e Literature, Culture and the Arts
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The late nineteenth-century fin de si裬e has proved an enduringly fascinating moment in literary and cultural history. It is associated with the emergence of intriguing figures-such as the 'new woman' and 'uranian'; with contradictory impulses-of decadence and decay on the one hand, and of experiment and renewal, on the other; as well as with unprecedented intercultural exchange, especially between Britain and France. The 22 newly-commissioned essays collected here re-examine some of the key concepts taken to define the fin de si裬e, while also introducing hitherto overlooked cultural phenomena into the frame, such as the importance of humanitarianism. The impact of recent research in material culture is explored, particularly how the history of the book and the history of performance culture is changing our understanding of this period. A wide range of cultural activities is discussed-from participation in avant-garde theatre to interior decoration and from the writing of poetry to political and religious activism. Together, the essays provide new scholarly insights into British fin de si裬e and enrich our understanding of this complex period, while paying particular attention to the importance of regionalism.
ISBN: 9781474408912Publication Date: 2018-02-01
Contextual Resources
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Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism in C19 This link opens in a new windowThe Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism is a new reference work with over 1600 entries detailing British and Irish newspaper and periodical publishing in the nineteenth century.
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Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1835 This link opens in a new window
Bringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
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Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest (Nineteenth Century Collections Online) This link opens in a new windowThrough a variety of official government documents, political papers of prominent individuals, and newspaper accounts, researchers can trace the development of British strategic imperatives, French and Belgian desire for the expansion of trade and raw materials, and Germany and Italy’s late entrance onto the imperial stage. Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest covers exploration, military and missionary activities, and economic and political imperialism in the ninetenth century. Documents are sourced from The National Archives, Kew; the U.S. National Archives; the Library of Congress; the National Library of Scotland; and Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
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Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new windowSearchable database that provides access to the literary criticism collections Classical and Medieval Literary Criticism (CMLC), Children's Literature Review (CLR), Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC), Drama Criticism (DC), Literature Criticism from 1400-1800 (LC), Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism (NCLC), Poetry Criticism (PC), Shakespeare Criticism (SC), Short Story Criticism (SSC), and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (TCLC).
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Grand Tour This link opens in a new windowThe Grand Tour was a rite of passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young Britons of the eighteenth century, and a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the era’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. Study the history of travel with this unique collection of written primary and secondary sources, artworks, photographs and maps, c. 1550-1850, which highlights the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.
This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works, including many from private sources, allows scholars to compare a range of documents on the history of this travel. Together the documents form a rich source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transport, money, communications, food and drink, health and sex. The material also covers European political and religious life, British diplomacy, life at court, and social customs on the continent. -
John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new windowThis collection provides access to thousands of items selected from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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London Low Life This link opens in a new windowRare books, ephemera, maps, periodicals, and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. Chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links. Fast literature, street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides), penny fiction, cartoons, Tallis’ Street Views, chapbooks, Old London Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, tourist guides, and topography, manuscripts of George Gissing.
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Women and Social Movements, International— 1840 to Present This link opens in a new windowOnline archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women’s international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women’s international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs. Also contains numerous online publications of contemporary Non-Governmental Organizations.
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19th Century U.K. Periodicals Series This link opens in a new windowThe 19th century was a time of revolutionary change and expansion. Britain was one of the world's first industrial, urban superpowers and developed a press to feed the demands of its increasingly literate population. 19th Century UK Periodicals Online, 1800-1900 is a major new series that covers the events, lives, values and themes that shaped the 19th century world.
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19th Century British Newspapers, (aka British Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
This database features British newspapers from the 19th century selected by the British Library's editorial board. Many of the newspapers are available in complete runs, and all are searchable full-text. Access includes British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1900, British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800-1900, British Library Newspapers, Part III: 1741-1950, British Library Newspapers, Part IV: 1732-1950 and British Library Newspapers, Part V: 1746-1950
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MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO Version) This link opens in a new window
The MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. It is produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), an organization dedicated to the study and teaching of language and literature. The electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1925 and contains over 2 million citations from more than 4,400 periodicals (including peer-reviewed e-journals) and 1,000 book publishers.
Suggested Terms for Searching InfoHawk+ or Databases
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English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism
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English literature -- 19th century -- Themes, motives
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English poetry -- 18th century
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English drama -- 19th century -- History and criticism
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Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century
- Call numbers beginning with P (philology and linguistics), PN (general literature), and PR (English literature) are going to be located on the west side of the 4th floor.
Databases
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C19, The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new windowProvides integrated bibliographic coverage of over over 1.3 million books and official publications, and 10 million articles published in over 2,000 journals, magazines and newspapers.
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Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which has aimed to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of over 180,000 titles of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera. Subject categories include history and geography; fine arts and social sciences; medicine, science, and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; general reference. Also included are significant collections of women writers of the eighteenth century, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare. Where they add scholarly value or contain important differences, multiple editions of each individual work are offered.
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Eighteenth Century Drama This link opens in a new windowA unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824, and hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays
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JSTOR (Journal Storage) This link opens in a new windowProvides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, philosophy, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each titles. Journals may be searched across multiple titles as well as by the individual titles below
Note that this database comprises mostly back issues: for most titles the JSTOR database does NOT include full text of the most recent 3 to 5 years. -
Literary Manuscripts: Berg Collection This link opens in a new windowThis collection traces the genesis of some of the nineteenth century’s greatest literary masterpieces through the unique manuscripts of their authors, many unavailable elsewhere. They are supplemented by rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors.
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Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new windowA fully searchable library of over 350,000 works of English and American literature, overseen by an academic advisory board.
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Nineteenth-Century Fiction This link opens in a new windowA collection of 250 British and Irish novels from the period 1782 to 1903, stretching from the golden age of Gothic fiction to the Decadent and New Woman novels of the 1890s. Major novelists of the period such as Austen, Scott, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy and the Brontes feature alongside popular romances, sensation fiction, colonial adventure novels and children's literature. Part of Literature Online (LION).
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Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new windowMulti-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, with archives releasing incrementally beginning in spring 2012. The content is sourced from the world’s preeminent libraries and archives. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. Collections I - XII.
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Nineteenth Century Literary Society This link opens in a new windowDiscover the work of one of the world’s most important publishing dynasties through this collection from the historic John Murray Archive. From book history to travel writing, politics to poetry, this newly digitized resource introduces an unparalleled repository for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.
Journals
Click on the "i" info icon after the title to view a brief description about the following literary journals:
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Nineteenth-Century Literature Scholars of literary history and theory turn to Nineteenth-Century Literature for the newest research and thought on all English-language writers of the nineteenth century. First published in 1945 as The Trollopian, and later as Nineteenth-Century Fiction, the journal has earned a legendary reputation for innovative scholarship, scrupulous editing, and distinguished book reviews. Articles focus on a broad spectrum of significant figures in fiction, philosophy, and criticism such as Austen, Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Whitman, Twain, and Henry James. Every issue offers 150 pages of important articles, a convenient section of article abstracts, review essays, and an annotated bibliography of recent books published in the field of nineteenth-century literature.
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Eighteenth-Century Fiction Covers all aspects of imaginative prose in the period 1700-1800.
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19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 19 is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary study in the long nineteenth century. Based at Birkbeck, University of London, 19 extends the activities of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies by making the high-quality, original scholarship presented at its regular conferences, symposia and other events available to an international audience. 19 publishes two themed issues annually, each consisting of a collection of peer-reviewed articles showcasing the broadest range of new research in nineteenth-century studies, as well as special forums advancing critical debate in the field.
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The Review of English Studies The Review of English Studies is the leading scholarly journal in the field of English literature and the English language from the earliest period up to today. Emphasis is on historical scholarship rather than interpretive criticism, though fresh evaluation of writers and their work are also offered in the light of newly discovered or existing material.
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Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture Published annually by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture (SECC) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal devoted to showcasing revised versions of scholarship first presented in any public venue—including virtual conferences and online events—in the previous two years by a member of ASECS or of a learned society affiliated with ASECS or the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS). SECC features articles that chart out new directions for research on eighteenth-century culture and reflects the wide range of interests that characterize eighteenth-century studies.
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The Lady's Treasury: An Illustrated Magazine of Entertaining Literature Founded in 1858 and edited by Eliza Warren, the Ladies' Treasury provided an interesting range of fiction, from racy tales of adventure from America to rather didactic homilies on the virtues of hearth and home. Mrs. Warren published "How I Managed My House on 200 a Year" in 1864, which was also serialised in The Ladies' Treasury. Also included fashion, needlework, lessons in French and German, painting, poetry, etc. Mrs. Yorick Smythies wrote articles on female etiquette. Publications in this collection span from 1858-1895.
Web Resources
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Price One Penny: Cheap Literature 1837-1860Welcome to Price One Penny: Cheap Literature, 1837-1860 (POP). It contains a database which catalogues early Victorian penny fiction and thereby enables easy access to surviving copies and accurate bibliographic information. It is peer-reviewed and aggregated into NINES. It also includes an electronic edition of "The Mysteries of the Inquisition", translations of a French novel by a fascinating couple of author-lovers published in the London Journal on the one hand and by George Peirce on the other.
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NINES: Nineteenth-century Scholarship OnlineNINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship) is a scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first.
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The Dickens Project (UC Santa Cruz)Created by The University of Buckingham, DJO's aim is to launch, by the time of the Charles Dickens bicentenary in February 2012, a complete online edition of Dickens's weekly magazines, "Household Words", and "All the Year Round". Readers have access to high-quality facsimile downloads of each weekly number, which show a fully searchable transcript of the text of each page, which has been patiently corrected by means of the OTC project, and with the help of our volunteers.
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Yellowbacks at EmoryYellowbacks first appeared in the late 1840s and were available in basically the same format for over sixty years. The yellowback was often the cheaper version of a title which was also available in a clothbound edition. Early yellowbacks usually just had the title of the work within a geometric design, but soon a color illustration of an (often dramatic) event in the book became the norm. The subject matter of yellowbacks was usually fiction, everything from classics like Jane Austen to obscure works that are only found in a few copies today. There were non-fiction titles, too, on subjects ranging from healthcare and politics to aquariums and birdwatching. Due to their cheap and fragile bindings yellowbacks are rare today so it’s noteworthy that MARBL, with over 2,000 titles, has the second largest institutional yellowback collection in the world. Most were acquired in the 1980s though the collection at Emory is still being added to today.
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The Shelley-Godwin ArchiveThe Shelley-Godwin Archive will provide the digitized manuscripts of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, bringing together online for the first time ever the widely dispersed handwritten legacy of this uniquely gifted family of writers. The result of a partnership between the New York Public Library and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, in cooperation with Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the S-GA also includes key contributions from the Huntington Library, the British Library, the Houghton Library, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In total, these partner libraries contain over 90% of all known relevant manuscripts.
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The British Railway GuideA monthly magazine journal with issues from 1962-1969 from Gale's Nineteenth Century Collections Online.