Lioterature Online opening page

The Libraries are pleased to announce access to ProQuest’s Literature Online (formerly “LION”) database, courtesy of the Arkansas State Library’s Traveler program.

Literature Online offers the full text of more than 350,000 works of literature, together with literary criticism, author profiles, and reference works such as Routledge Companions, encyclopedias, and glossaries.  The database includes literatures from across the globe, from the 8th century BCE to today.  Authors range from Marcus Aurelius to Margaret Atwood, Chrysostom to Chris Ware. Literary texts can be browsed or search by criteria such as genre, time period, literary movement or period, nationality or ethnicity, gender of author, or by keywords or phrases appearing in the text.  Most texts are drawn from editions in the public domain though some 20th century poetry from publishers such as Faber and Faber or Black Sparrow are also present.  Use the Complete Contents page to browse through all Literature Online contents.

In addition to critical essays and articles drawn from several hundred scholarly journals,  300 Cambridge Companions to Literature are represented as well as the New Essays on the American Novel series from Cambridge.

Within Literature Online is the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), an important index to published scholarship that dates back to 1920.  ABELL contains more than 900,000 records covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and some doctoral dissertations.  ABELL will provide citations to articles and books; use the Find it link to locate available full text or to request an item on Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad).

ABELL Search results and Find It! button

Literature Online complements other library resources offering full text of literary works, such as Black Women Writers and Black Drama, as well as aids for locating literary criticism, such as the MLA International Bibliography or the World Shakespeare Bibliography, and reference collections such as the Dictionary of Literary Biography or Credo Reference. Tired of today’s endless chatter? Take a trip to the world of timeless words; explore Literature Online today,