English & American Literature

This British Library's series brings to life the social, political and cultural context in which key works of literature were written. View digitized treasures from the British Library collection, articles, and short documentary films. This collection explores the ways in which key 20th-century authors experimented with new forms and themes to capture the fast-changing world around them.

[Open University] Contains over 30,000 searchable records documenting the history of reading in Britain from 1450 to 1945. Evidence of reading presented is drawn from published and unpublished sources as diverse as diaries, commonplace books, memoirs, sociological surveys, and criminal court and prison records.

[Stanford] Explore literary references to London locations in texts by 47 authors, written over 6 centuries.

Unique collection items and expert commentary related to History, Literature, and Citizenship.

View many documents through the Archives' online exhibitions. The displays cover various periods using photographs, documents and film. Browse by Topic and by Historical Period.

Search across descriptions of archives, including links to digital content, held at over 300 institutions across the UK.

This is a project operated by the Cambridge University Library designed to make items from the unique and distinctive collections of Cambridge University Library available online.

A resource for learning about the collections in the UK's many museums.

Digital scholarly project, using geographic information systems (GIS) technology, which provides data from sources such as historical maps, census records, descriptive gazetteers, and election results. Also includes a digital collection of historical British travel writing by writers from the 1600s-1800s. Each author gives a different perspective on the towns and villages they visited.

[Stanford] Kindred Britain is a network of nearly 30,000 individuals — many of them iconic figures in British culture — connected through family relationships of blood, marriage, or affiliation.

A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

[Harvard Library] Presents images of the texts of more than 450 trial narratives printed in the United States or the United Kingdom from 1815 until 1914, drawn from the Harvard Law School Library's trial collections. The narratives include trials for murder, rape, divorce, domestic violence, adultery, bigamy, breach of promise to marry and the custody of children.

Accessible archived guide to British history and culture. No longer updated. Created for the general reader.

Links to primary sources in the UK from antiquity to the present.

Includes information about the manuscript holdings of British and Irish repositories of all sizes, from the British Library to small-town museums, and about literary authors of all genres, from major poets to minor science fiction writers and romantic novelists.

Rich collection of primary materials. Access online collections: view maps & photographs; read letters, diaries & newspapers; hear personal accounts of events; listen to sound recordings & watch historic films.

View many digitized U.S. historical documents and photographs. The Archives' online exhibitions cover various topics and highlight the Archives' rich collections. Useful for putting American literature into a historical context.

An all-digital library that aggregates information and thumbnails for millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums in the United States.

Curated exhibitions designed to tell stories of national significance using source materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the U.S., including letters, photographs, posters, oral histories, video clips, sheet music, and more.

[Harvard Library] Presents images of the texts of more than 450 trial narratives printed in the United States or the United Kingdom from 1815 until 1914, drawn from the Harvard Law School Library's trial collections. The narratives include trials for murder, rape, divorce, domestic violence, adultery, bigamy, breach of promise to marry and the custody of children.

Digital publishing initiative that provides access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections (including North American Slave Narratives) of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.

Comprehensive archive that brings together primary source materials from the collections of many libraries, museums, public broadcasters, and other organizations. There is also a collection of links to secondary educational materials.

This archive provides access to digital files of noncommercial radio programs from the 1950s and 1960s, documenting the experiences of activists in the Civil Rights Movement.

Research and reference guide to various literary periods and authors in American Literature. Lists biographies, bibliographies, and study guides for a large number of American writers.

Literary Hub aims to be a single, trusted, daily source for all the news and ideas related to contemporary literary life, focusing on literary fiction and nonfiction. Content includes news, works of fiction and poetry, a book review aggregator, podcasts, and audiobooks.

This humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin has extensive collections which encompass literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts.There are 80+ digitized collections on a variety of topics in literature, photography, and the performing arts.

Digital collections and databases to support research in the visual arts. Start your research in the Getty Search Gateway portal where you can search for free images for downloading without restriction.

An educational resource designed for teachers and students featuring primary sources from the Newberry Library's (Chicago) holdings, contextual essays, and discussion questions. See also Digital Newberry.

Created by UNESCO and the Library of Congress, provides free online access to world cultural treasures. Includes manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings from a variety of countries, covering the time period 8000 BCE-2000 CE.

This collection holds and provides access to books, serials, and microforms containing information by and about people of African descent throughout the world, concentrating on the humanities, social sciences, and the arts. Geographically, the collection emphasizes the Americas, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.