Victorian Studies

Provides a survey of the early history of African American poetry, from the first recorded poem by an African American (Lucy Terry Prince's 'Bars Fight', c.1746) to the major poets of the nineteenth century, including Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Created from the Library Company of Philadelphia's acclaimed Afro-Americana Collection, this collection covers the West's discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World along with the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought, including political protest and resistance to racism; descriptions of African American life -- slave and free -- throughout the Americans; and slavery and race in fiction and drama. Also featured are printed works of African American individuals and organizations.

Major dramatists include David Belasco, Rachel Crothers, Augustin Daly, Clyde Fitch, Edward Harrigan, James Herne, William Dean Howells and Joaquin Miller.

Most texts included are from the 18th and 19th centuries.

The 25 million+ records in C19 Index include the following sources: Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue, The Nineteenth Century publishing program, ProQuest’s American Periodicals, ProQuest’s British Periodicals, Cotgreave's Index, An Index to Legal Periodical Literature, Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 1811–1849, Periodicals Index Online, Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, Stead's Index to Periodical Literature, The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, The U.S. Serial Set, Archive Finder, Palmer's Index to The Times, The "Bookman" Directory of Booksellers, Publishers and Authors, and Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism.

The Berg Collection is recognized as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown. A broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature. Most of these unique manuscripts are unavailable in any medium elsewhere. Supplemented by some rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors. Each author collection is included in its entirety, allowing users to browse and search the manuscripts. Authors include Matthew Arnold, the Brontes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Rotundas Literature and Culture collection offers scholars and students at all levels an invaluable source of primary and secondary materials by some of the eras most enduring figures: William Wells Brown, Herman Melville, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, and Emily Shore.

The full-text of each work is available and searchable, and page images of the original editions are included. Includes novels and short stories by such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain, as well as a host of minor writers of the period.

Based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and supplemented by thousands of additional items.  Allows students and scholars to explore the development of the American nation through a variety of genres and formats, from folk art to politics. Offers fully searchable text and a browse feature with topical indexes.

Taken from the holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, the resource includes a range of recently uncovered books, pamphlets and broadsides, most of which were not included in Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker's American Bibliography. These items were printed during the Early Republic, and span the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson and the passage of the Indian Civilization Act.

English Drama contains more than 3,900 plays in verse and prose from the late thirteenth century - the likely date of the Shrewsbury Fragments - to the early twentieth. It offers exhaustive coverage of the prodigious dramatic literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, as well as Restoration plays, medieval morality plays and mystery cycles, and nineteenth-century closet dramas. In addition to works by major dramatists such as Ben Jonson, Aphra Behn, William Wycherley, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Sheridan, Oscar Wilde and J. M. Synge, English Drama includes the dramatic writings of many more neglected writers long inaccessible in print form.

The English Poetry database contains over 4,500 volumes by 1,350 poets, comprising over 165,920 poems. Poets whose works are included have been selected from The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (available in the IU Research Collections under the Call Number REF Z 2011.N53). The poems are the English-language works of British, Irish, Scottish and Welsh poets, from the Anglo-Saxon period through the end of the Nineteenth century.

Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period includes more than 80 volumes of poetry by approximately 50 Irish women writing between 1768 and 1842. Compiled and edited by Stephen Behrendt of the University of Nebraska, the database also offers numerous biographical and critical essays prepared by leading scholars specifically for the project. New content is added to the collection on a regular basis.

Includes access to the following modules: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange ; British Politics and Society ; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture ; European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection ; Children's Literature and Childhood ; Mapping the World ; Europe And Africa ; Photography: the World Through the Lens ; Science, Technology, and Medicine; Women: Transnational Networks.

The goal of the Victorian Women Writers Project is to produce highly accurate transcriptions of literary works by British women writers of the late 19th century, encoded using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The works, selected with the assistance of the Advisory Board, will include anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, and volumes of poetry and verse drama.
Perry Willett, General Editor