Skip to Main Content

English Literature and Creative Writing: Databases

Close-up of typewriter keys

Databases provide access to high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, dissertations and many other resources. 

These databases have been especially selected for this subject area. When carrying out your research for a piece of work, you will need to search more than one database to find all of the journal articles relevant to your topic, as each database covers different journal titles.

Database Spotlight

Images from Archives of Sexuality and Gender Database

Archives of Sexuality and Gender

This database, currently the largest portfolio of digital primary source material to address this complex area of cultural studies, encompasses social history, social and political science, psychology, health, and policy studies.

The Library offers access to three diversely sourced collections. The broad expanse of LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 and sex and sexuality from the sixteenth century to the twentieth allow scholars to trace how sexual norms have changed over time, the evolution of public health, changing gender roles, and the ebb and flow of social movements and activism. Researchers can also draw upon a wider pool of material to uncover hidden histories, such as the full text of the landmark Wolfenden report (1957), and the testimonies that underpinned its findings.

The newly acquired,Community and Identity in North America” archive comprises over a million pages of mainly unique or unpublished material, detailing how identities developed in different social conditions across the Americas. This collection also widens our offer to interdisciplinary groupings such as the Morgan Centre, CIDRAL and CSSC, whose work informs the University’s pioneering MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture

These collections have been selected to complement our growing reserves in the area – both digital (Gender: identity and social change and Defining Gender) and physical (LGBQT+ holdings in our Special Collections) - with the latter recently boosted by the acquisition of the archive which will feature prominently in the forthcoming ‘Secret Public’ exhibition at the Rylands.

The database incorporates multiple filtering options, including a term frequency tool, which enables mapping of the usage of a word or phrase by content type or popularity over a period of years. Researchers can also cross-search the entirety of the Library’s content hosted on the Gale Primary Sources platform.

Essential databases

The following are important databases for this subject area, however if you don't see what you're looking for, please go to the Database Directory for English Literature and Creative Writing to browse a wider selection.

 

  • MLA international bibliography Essential
    Produced by the Modern Language Association The MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. International in scope, it includes citations to journal articles, books, articles in books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites, and dissertations, with links to full text in JSTOR, Project MUSE, and other resources. The database also includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals and the MLA Thesaurus, a proprietary, searchable collection of thousands of subject terms, and personal names used in indexing the bibliography.
  • Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) Essential
    The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature contains 960,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards.
  • ProQuest One Literature Essential
    ProQuest One Literature is for scholars who must engage with an exhaustive and diverse set of scholarly resources around a given literary topic for research and course planning.It contains 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, dissertations, and more than 500,000 primary works – including rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings. Enhanced by interpretive sources such as book reviews and criticism sourced from wider, interdisciplinary publications in the fields such as humanities and history, it provides diverse, global perspectives with sources from all over the world – Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America - the majority of which are in full-text.
  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index Essential
    Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. Indexes world's leading arts and humanities journals with selected, relevant items from major science and social science journals. Searchable via Web of Science
  • JSTOR Essential
    Used by millions for research, teaching, and learning. With more than a thousand academic journals and over one million images, letters, and other primary sources, JSTOR is one of the world's most trusted sources for academic content.
  • Drama Online Essential
    The award-winning Drama Online introduces new writers alongside the most iconic names in playwriting history, providing contextual and critical background through scholarly works and practical guides. Our constantly growing collection meets the full range of teaching needs for theatre studies, literature courses and drama schools. From the epic to the monologue; ensemble to one-person plays; comedy to tragedy; the historical to the contemporary; and from the highly political to the profoundly personal, there is plenty to discover. Our unique Play Tools with Character Grids, Words and Speech graphs and Part Books offer a new way to engage with plays for close study or for performance.
  • The Faber Poetry Library Essential
    The Faber Poetry Library contains the works of 50 poets comprising 140 volumes of poetry. The authors are all part of the Faber Poetry list and the database enjoys the active support of the publisher and the poets or their estates. The full details of the volumes included in the collection are given in the bibliography. Authors covered include Simon Armitage, Rupert Brooke, Wendy Cope, T. S. Eliot, Lavinia Greenlaw, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, David Jones, Louis MacNeice, Andrew Motion, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin, Sylvia Plath, Siegfried Sassoon, Stephen Spender and Edward Thomas.
  • Oberon Books Collection (Drama Online) Essential New
    Encompassing 900 (individually indexed) titles from a key publisher of plays and books on theatre practice and theory and accessible through Drama Online. In additional to canonical texts, the portfolio incorporates an unparalleled range of new and diverse writing from the contemporary era.
  • Archives of Sexuality and Gender Essential
    The Archives of Sexuality and Genderprogram provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history.
  • Cambridge Histories Online Essential New
    First published in 1902, the Cambridge Histories is a globally respected series of over 400 volumes spanning ten subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, with a concentration on political and cultural history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, music and the arts. Presenting history as a continuous and evolutionary process, the Cambridge Histories offer a big picture perspective in each subject area, making them essential reading for anyone researching or studying a subject that has an historical element. This site allows instant access to the renowned texts of the Cambridge Histories series, searchable by author, title and subject. Continually updated with new volumes taken from the print series as soon as they become available, this collection represents an impressive breadth and depth of scholarship that offers an unmatched resource for today's historians.

Database Directory

You can use our Database Directory to browse a broader range of databases that are relevant to English Literature and Creative Writing as well as other subjects. The directory also allows you to identify databases that provide access to specific types of resources (e.g. Full Text Articles, Streaming Video, Patents, Theses and Dissertations, and much more).

Database Directory English Literature and Creative Writing

Research at the University of Manchester

The University of Manchester's research is internationally recognised. Go to Research Explorer, Manchester's research database, to discover the breadth of research produced by staff across the University.

Browse research publications from the Department of English, American Studies and Creative Writing (please note: whilst many of the publications listed are available to access/Open Access, some records are for forthcoming titles awaiting publication).

 

Research Explorer Search Interface

 

Ask a question