Indexes and Full-Text Online Resources
While other resources listed in this guide include literary subjects, the resources below cover them specifically.
- 18th Century Women PlaywrightsSearchable full-text of Eighteenth Century Women Playwrights. General editor, Derek Hughes. 6 volumes. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2001. Includes plays by Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, Mary Pix, Susanna Centlivre, Elizabeth Griffith, Hannah Cowley and Elizabeth Inchbald. The introductory matter for each playwright includes biographical information.
African writers by 
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ISBN: 9780684316697Publication Date: 1997Contains essays on African writers from seventeen countries writing in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, and indigenous languages. Subjects span the late nineteenth century to the present.
- African Writers Series
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Reprints of essential texts including distinctive contemporary national literature, widely studied, and post-colonial literature.
- American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the PresentContains biographical and critical essays on 1,328 American women writers covering all genres and periods of American history. St. James Press. Available from the Gale Virtual Reference Library.
- Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome
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Covers ancient Greek and Roman writers of the classical period. Entries include biographical information, as well as discussion of the themes and styles of major works. - Arts and Humanities Through the ErasChapters begin with a chronology of major events within the discipline followed by articles covering the movements, schools of thought, and masterworks that characterize the discipline during the era and biographical profiles of pioneers, masters, and other prominent figures in the field.
- Biographical and critical materials pertaining to Kentucky authorsPublication Date: 1941
- Black Literature Criticism: Classic and Emerging Authors since 1950
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Focuses on writers and works published since 1950. The majority of the authors surveyed are African American, but representative African and Caribbean authors are also included.
- British writers. Volume II by
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ISBN: 9780684316512Publication Date: 1979This collection of critical essays covers writers who have made significant contributions to British, Irish, and Commonwealth literature from the 14th century to the present day. 
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ISBN: 9781414410487Publication Date: 2007-11-01Profiles today's "most outstanding and widely known writers." Collects detailed biographical and bibliographical information on approximately 700 authors who are most often studied in college and high school.
- Contemporary Authors
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Please note: Online coverage is from 2003 to the present only. For older volumes, retrieve the volume from the shelf in the Young Library Reference Collection, 2nd floor, west wing under the call number: PS 129 .C530 (Contemporary Authors or PS 129 .C5330 (New Revision Series).
- Contemporary NovelistsContains biographical/critical essays on influential novelists writing in English worldwide. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer, eds., St. James Press.
- Dictionary of Literary Biography
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Provides comprehensive access to the series dedicated to making literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and interested readers while simultaneously satisfying the standards of librarians, teachers, and scholars. The series provides reliable information on authors and their works in an easy to understand, engaging format, while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history.
Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780684315904Publication Date: 2008-06-01Provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary view of Latin American history and culture from prehistoric times to the present. Covers cultural issues and includes numerous biographical profiles of important figures in politics, letters and the arts.
- EscritorasContains information on the literature of Spanish American women, including biographical information and interviews.
- European writers by
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ISBN: 9780684316796Publication Date: 1983-1991Covers writers who have made significant contributions to European literature. Includes in-depth critical and biographical analysis.
- Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of American Literature
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Covers American authors from many periods and genres, building a broad understanding of the various contexts - from the biographical to the literary to the historical - in which literature can be viewed.
- Gale contextual encyclopedia of world literatureISBN: 9781414448718Publication Date: 2009Covers world authors from many periods and genres, building an understanding of the various contexts -- from the biographical to the literary to the historical -- in which literature can be viewed. Identifies the significant literary devices and global themes that define a writer's style and place the author in a larger literary tradition as chronicled and evaluated by critics over time.
- Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature
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Contains 272 entries on topics in Asian American literature, including writers, special topics, events, and terms. Covers literature by North American writers of Asian descent from the late 1890s to 2007, within a variety of contexts. Guiyou Huang, ed.
- Latin American Women Writers
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Online version of the Hispanic American Periodicals Index. Provides citations to articles in hundreds of social science and humanities journals worldwide that cover Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Specific topics include current political, economic, and social issues and coverage of Latin American arts and letters. Contains bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews, documents, and original literary works.
- Latin American WritersCollection of biographical and critical essays on Latin American writers by scholars from the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. Covers chroniclers, novelists, poets, journalists, and playwrights from the sixteenth century to the present. Supplement includes revisions on writers, including Isabel Allende, Guillermo Cabrero Infante and Ernesto Cardenal.
- Latino and Latina writers by
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ISBN: 9780684316598Publication Date: 2004A two-volume bio-bibliographical and critical examination of numerous Cuban, Dominican, Chicano and Puerto Rican writers. Includes only authors who have published since 1960.
- Literary Index
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Master index to the major literature products published by Gale and the imprints Charles Scribner's Sons, St. James Press, and Twayne Publishers. Provides access to biographical and critical information. - Literature Online
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Find biographies by browsing or searching the Biographies sub-tab under the Reference tab.
Mystery and Suspense Writers: The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage by - This link opens in a new window
Publication Date: 1998In addition to the essays on specific authors, fourteen articles address wide-ranging types of mysteries, including the armchair detective, the black detective, the female detective, the gay and lesbian mystery, the legal crime novel, the police procedural, the religious mystery, the romantic suspense novel, and the spy thriller.
- Nobel Prize WinnersBiographical coverage arranged by year, category and name.
- Poets: American and BritishEntries include biographical information, critical analysis, and bibliographies of key primary and secondary works. Ian Scott-Kilvert, ed. Charles Scribner's Sons. 3 vols. (1998)
Reference Guide to Holocaust Literature by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 1558624694Publication Date: 2002-06-01Covering the entire spectrum of the literature of the Holocaust era, from the beginnings of Nazism through the concentration camp experience, survivor syndrome and second generation response, this detailed survey includes entries on more than 200 authors and 300 works.
- Reference Guide to Short FictionContains biographical and critical essays on 376 writers of short fiction writing in English worldwide. Also includes some authors of note who did not write in English but whose works have been widely translated and are often studied, such as Anton Chekhov and Jean-Paul Sartre. Most authors covered were born after 1750, but a few important figures from earlier periods are included as well.
- Reference Guide to World LiteratureContains biographical and critical essays on authors from throughout the world. Includes, for example, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Flaubert, Ibsen, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Rimbaud, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoi.
Science fiction writers by
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ISBN: 9780684316642Publication Date: 1999Covers nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers of science fiction. Provides biographical information, the historical and/or literary context of the author's work, synopses of major titles, critical commentary, and a selected bibliography listing books by and about the writer.
- SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science FictionWith a focus on English-language SF, covers over 9,000 authors as well as artists, editors, critics, and characters.
- Something about the Author
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Provides illustrated biographical profiles of children's authors and artists, ranging from established award winners to authors and illustrators just beginning their careers. Entries typically cover personal life, career, writings, works in progress, adaptations, and additional sources. Coverage 1971 (vol. 1) - 2014 (vol. 267)
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ISBN: 0684312506Publication Date: 2002-11-01Essays written by scholars--yet accessible to the general reader and student--treat both writers who have risen to prominence since the 1985 edition, and those whose careers have continued since original coverage, such as Stephen King, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Harlan Ellison.
- Victorian Women Writers Project
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Provides full-text of works by British women writers of the 19th century including anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books and volumes of poetry and verse drama. - Voices from the Gaps
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Covers "women writers of color in North America."
- World poets by
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ISBN: 9780684316659Publication Date: 2000Includes articles on numerous poets from around the world, accompanied by essays on various genres and schools of poetry. - The writers directory 2011 by
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ISBN: 9781558627833Publication Date: 2011Features bibliographical, biographical and contact information for living authors worldwide who have at least one English publication. Entries include name, pseudonyms, addresses, citizenship, birth date, specialization, career information and a bibliography. - Writers for children: critical studies of major authors since the seventeenth century by
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ISBN: 9780684316987Publication Date: 1988Critical studies of major children's authors since the seventeenth century. Entries include biographical information, critical analysis, and bibliographies of key primary and secondary works.
- Writers for Young AdultsCritical studies of major young-adult writers. Entries include biographical information, critical analysis, and bibliographies of key primary and secondary works. Ted Hipple, ed. 3 vols. Includes Supplement from 2000.
Special Collections Research Center
A rich source of material is the Kentucky Writers Oral History Project, which contains over 100 oral history interviews recorded from 1977 onward.
The Special Collections Research Center is also home to the Peal Collection, which contains personal writings (e.g., diaries, letters) of the writers of the Romantic Period and other European writers. In fact, the personal papers of many significant writers can be found in the Special Collections Research Center.
See the following Research Guides for more material on literary figures: