This guide will help you conduct literary criticism research.

• First, search the RCPL Books and Literature online databases.  These often contain the full-text of works of criticism.
• Next, search the Library’s online catalog for books on your topic.  Search by subject keyword or general keyword to generate a list of books available at RCPL.
• If you need more resources, look through the list of books below - click on a title to learn more about the book.  These books are located in the Cooper General Reference area of the Main Library on the second level.  

Books and Literature Databases | Bibliographies | General Literary Criticism | Historical Periods | Book Reviews | Short Fiction | Long Fiction | Genre Fiction | Poetry | Drama | Shakespeare | Multicultural | Regionalism | Popular Culture

 Books and Literature Databases 

Book Review Index Online Plus
Containing the entire backfile of Book Review Index print content from 1965 to the present, Book Review Index Online is unparalleled in scope, with more than 4 million reviews on more than 2 million titles.

Books & Authors
Books & Authors offers new ways to explore the endless possibilities and combinations of books, authors, genres and topics.

Contemporary Novelists
Contains biographical/critical essays on the most important living novelists writing in English worldwide.                  

Contemporary Poets
Provides biographical and bibliographical information on 789 of the world's most important contemporary English-language poets. 

Lit Finder
Contains full-text stories, poems, essays, speeches, plays and more. 

Literature Criticism Online
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Poetry Criticism and Shakespearean Criticism have been brought together online under a single searchable interface from Gale publishing.               

Literature Resource Center
Contains author biographies, literary criticism, bibliographies, Internet sites, genre searches, reference book entries (such as literary dictionaries) and more. This is a good site to begin a literary search.

Scribner Writers Series
1,600 original and detailed essays on the lives and works of important authors from around the world. 

Short Story Index
Indexes short stories published in collections and selected periodicals. The periodicals are those indexed in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. 

Something About the Author
Provides illustrated biographical profiles of children's authors and artists, ranging from established award winners to authors and illustrators who are just beginning their careers.

Bibliographies

• Folklore and literature in the United States: an annotated bibliography of studies of folklore in American literature
• The Johns Hopkins guide to literary theory and criticism
• Literary criticism index
• Literary research guide
• Nonfiction classics for students
• Reference guide to Holocaust literature
• Reference guide to world literature
• Reference works in British and American literature

General Literary Criticism

• African American literary criticism, 1773-2000
• Chicorel index to literary criticism in books
• Classical and medieval literature criticism
• Contemporary literary criticism
• Literary research guide: an annotated listing of reference sources in English literary studies
• Literature criticism 1400-1800: excerpts from criticism of the works of fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth-century novelists, poets, playwrights, philosophers, and other creative writers, from the first published critical appraisals to current evaluations
• Magill’s survey of world literature
• The Major authors edition of the New Moulton’s library of literary criticism
• Modern British Literature
• Nineteenth-century literature criticism
• Time bites: views and reviews
• Twentieth-century literary criticism
• World literature criticism: 1500 to the present: a selection of major authors from Gale’s literary criticism series

Historical Periods

• American history through literature, 1870-1920
• The Cambridge history of English literature, 1660-1780
• Encyclopedia of ancient literature
• Holocaust literature
• Literature and its times: profiles of 300 notable literary works and the historical events that influenced them
• Literature and its times: Supplement 1: profiles of notable literary works and the historical events that influenced them

Book Reviews

• Book review digest
• TLS, the Times literary supplement

Short Fiction

• The Columbia companion to the twentieth-century American short story
• Critical survey of short fiction
• The Facts on File companion to the American short story
• The Facts on File companion to the British short story
• On stories
• Reference guide to short fiction
• Short stories for students
• Short story criticism
• Short story index
• Twentieth century short story explication: new series: with checklists of books and journals used (v. 1) | (v. 2) | (v. 3)

Long Fiction

• Critical survey of long fiction
• The Facts on File companion to the American novel
• The Facts on File companion to the British novel
• The Facts on File companion to the French novel
• The Facts on File companion to the world novel
• Novels for students

Genre Fiction

• Alienated-youth fiction
• American gothic fiction: an introduction
• American mystery and detective novels: a reference guide
• Chick lit : the new women’s fiction
• Critical survey of mystery and detective fiction
• The fairy tale: the magic mirror of imagination
• Literary themes for students: examining diverse literature to understand and compare universal themes
• Magill’s guide to science fiction and fantasy literature
• Modern mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writers
• The Oxford companion to fairy tales
• Reference guide to science fiction, fantasy, and horror
• Science fiction and fantasy literature. 1975-1991: a bibliography of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction books and nonfiction monographs
• Science fiction and fantasy reference index, 1985-1991: an international author and subject index to history and criticism
• Science fiction before 1900: imagination discovers technology
• The wand in the word: conversations with writers of fantasy

Poetry

• The Cambridge companion to Victorian poetry  
• The Columbia history of American poetry
• Contemporary poets
• Critical survey of poetry
• Encyclopedia of American poetry. The nineteenth century
• Encyclopedia of American poetry. The twentieth century
• The Facts on File companion to American poetry
• The Facts on File companion to British poetry before 1600
• The Facts on File companion to British poetry
• The Facts on File companion to 20th-century poetry
• The Facts on File companion to world poetry: 1900 to the present
• Guide to American poetry explication (v.1) | (v.2)
• Guide to British poetry explication  (v. 1) | (v. 2) | (v. 3) | (v. 4)
• Poetry criticism: excerpts from criticism of the works of the most significant and widely studied poets of world literature
• Poetry for students

Drama

• American drama 1945-2000: an introduction
• Critical survey of drama
• Drama criticism
• Drama for students
• The Facts on File companion to American drama
• The Facts on File companion to classical drama
• Greek drama
• Major modern dramatists
• Ottemiller’s index to plays in collections: an author and title index to plays appearing in collections published between 1900 and 1985

Shakespeare

• Asimov’s guide to Shakespeare
• Essential Shakespeare handbook
• The Greenwood companion to Shakespeare: a comprehensive guide for students
• The Oxford companion to Shakespeare
• Shakespeare A to Z: the essential reference to his plays, his poems, his life and times, and more
• Shakespeare as children’s literature: Edwardian retellings in words and pictures
• Shakespeare for students: critical interpretations of As you like it, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, A midsummer night’s dream, The merchant of Venice, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet
• Shakespeare for students: Book II: critical interpretations of Henry IV, part one, Henry V, King Lear, Much ado about nothing, Richard III, the Taming of the shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night
• Shakespeare for students: Book III: critical interpretations of All’s well that ends well, Antony and Cleopatra, The comedy of errors, Coriolanus, Measure for measure, Richard II, The sonnets, The winter’s tale
• Shakespearean criticism: excerpts from the criticism of William Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, from the first published appraisals to current evaluations  
• Shakespeare’s characters for students
• Shakespeares after Shakespeare: an encyclopedia of the Bard in mass media and popular culture

Multicultural

• Black literature criticism: classic and emerging authors since 1950
• The Cambridge companion to Native American literature
• Chinese American writers
• Chinese literature in the second half of a modern century: a critical survey
• The Columbia history of Chinese literature
• The contemporary African-American novel: its folk roots and modern literary branches
• Cuban writers on and off the island: contemporary narrative fiction
• Encyclopedia of Caribbean literature
• Jewish American literature: a guide to reading interests
• The literature of post-Communist Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania: a study

Regionalism

• A certain slant of light: regionalism and the form of southern and midwestern fiction
• The Imaginative spirit: literary heritage of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
• James Still: critical essays on the dean of Appalachian literature
• Literary New Orleans: essays and meditations
• Literary South Carolina
• Not just any land: a personal and literary journey into the American grasslands
• Realism and regionalism: 1860-1910
• The Southern renaissance
• Twentieth century southern literature
• Where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog: on writers and writing

Popular Culture

• Arguing comics: literary masters on a popular medium
• Reading the Beatles: cultural studies, literary criticism and the Fab Four