Books are a main resource for literature studies. Works in literature are generally fairly easy to find since you can search for either the title of the literary work or its author. One way to greatly expand the amount of book resources that you can use in your paper is to look in a book's table of contents or index.
British literature is found downstairs in the PR section and American literature is in the PS section. The authors are organized first by time period (oldest first) then alphabetically by last name.
At the front of the book, look at the book's table of contents. The table of contents will list the book's chapters. Chapters that deal with the work should be pretty easy to spot. A chapter length treatment of a work is similar to an article. So, before checking an index, check the book's table of contents.
Contemporary Literary Criticism by Contemporary Literary Criticism focuses only on providing extracts of literary criticism different works. Though each volume is organized by author, the Gale Literary Index is indispensable to finding your work in this series. Contemporary Literary Criticism, because of its size, provides extracts from criticism that may otherwise be difficult to locate.
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism by Similar to Contemporary Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism provides extracts of literary criticism from works published in the twentieth century. Because of its narrower focuses, it covers some more obscure works that Contemporary Literary Criticism doesn't.
Short Story CriticismLike Contemporary Literary Criticism, Short Story Criticism provides extracts of criticism on a given work. Unlike Contemporary Literary Criticism, Short Story Criticism focuses just on short stories. Because of this narrow focus, Short Story Criticism covers some fairly obscure short stories and may be the only source you may find criticism on some short stories.
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism by Similar to Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism provides extracts of literary criticism from works published in the twentieth century. Because of its narrower focuses, it covers some more obscure works that Contemporary Literary Criticism doesn't.
At the back of a book, you will often-but not always-see the book's index. Search for your literary work there. Depending on the book, you may find the literary work under its own entry but sometimes it will be listed under the author's name. A few other things to realize about indexes is that larger page range referneces tend to be more useful than references to one page mentions. Also, you may see "ff." This means that there are more pages following the page that is mentioned.
Novels for Students by Novels for Students is a good introduction to research on a novel. It provides some of the following:
Short Stories for Students by Similar to Novels for Students, Short Stories for Students provides a good introduction to a short story. It provides the following:
When looking for books on a work of literature, you will find that there are different sorts of books that can be used. Here are some things to be aware of:
World Literature and Its Times by The Literature and Its Times series differs from other works in the Gale series in that it focuses on the context in which a literary work is placed. That is, it will provide historical and cultural information to help the reader better understand the context of a literary work.
Contemporary Authors by Contemporary Authors provides biographical summaries of various authors' lives. It is helpful if you are looking to find out basic information about authors--about their dates, the works they wrote, and the major events in their lives. It does not, however, provide criticism on literary works.