Victorian literature resources

Voice of the Shuttle: English literature: Victorian

This is the best place to start looking for information on Victorian literature. The website is arranged under headings such as General resources; Authors, Social issues, Criticism, and so on. Also useful for the period immediately before the Victorian era (Eighteenth Century and Romanticism.)
An excellent site, well-maintained and kept up to date.

The Victorian Web

Subtitled: Literature, history and culture in the time of Victoria, the Victorian Web is a very rich source of information. The website is arranged under headings such as Political and Social History; Gender matters; Design; Philosophy; Politics and so on.
You can make use of the built in search engine to find specific items on the Victorian Web. There is a section linking to electronic versions of some Victorian texts, a bibliography and links to other websites of interest.

Victoria Research Web

Victoria Research Web: Scholarly Resources for Victorian Research is a guide to research resources for the scholarly study of nineteenth-century Britain. A facility for searching the VICTORIA discussion list archives puts at your fingertips over ten years' worth of scholarly discussion by Victorianists around the world.
The site includes the useful bibliography Victorian periodicals: aids to research.

Victorian Web Sites

A very large list of web pages on Victorian topics. It's a bit hard to find specific information - try using the Find option in your browser's Edit menu.

Victorian Women Writers Project

The goal of the Victorian Women Writers Project is to produce highly accurate transcriptions of works by British women writers of the 19th century, encoded using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The works include anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books, and volumes of poetry and verse drama.
You can use their search facility to find a particular work or consult their author lists of available works and works in preparation.
Sadly, the site hasn't been updated since April 2003.

Victorian Dictionary

The dictionary provides a useful social history of nineteenth century Victorian London. The site is searchable or you can browse through forty subject areas (including historical maps). Each word is defined through historical extracts, anecdotes, articles, and manuscripts. The site includes a valuable bibliography of journals, books, and pamphlets, some provided in full text.

A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Subtitled Selections Illustrating the Editor's Critical Review of British Poetry in the Reign of Victoria. Edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman, these 1,274 works by 343 authors represent the full course of one of the great literary ages of English verse.

Nineteenth Century Literature

A selective collection of open access literary criticism on British and American poets and authors. This site is very useful for finding criticism on individual authors (e.g. Austen, Eliot, Hardy, Coleridge, Wordsworth.)

Victorian studies

Devoted to the study of British culture of the Victorian period, this quarterly journal includes interdisciplinary articles on comparative literature, social and political history, and the histories of education, philosophy, fine arts, economics, law, and science and includes an extensive book review section in each issue.
We have both paper and online versions from vol.1, 1957 onwards.
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 820.5 V663

Trollopian

We have both paper and online versions from volume 1-3 (1945-1949).
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 823.05 N7
Note: from volume 4 (1949) changed title to Nineteenth-century fiction.

Nineteenth-century fiction

We have both paper and online versions from volume 4-40 (1949-1986).
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 823.05 N7
Note: volumes 1-3 (1945-1949) were called Trollopian; from volume 41 (1986) changed title to Nineteenth-century literature.

Nineteenth-century literature

We have both paper and online versions from vol. 41 (1986) onwards.
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 805 N714
Note: volumes 1-3 (1945-1949) were called Trollopian; volumes 4-40 (1949-1986) were called Nineteenth-century fiction.

English fiction in transition, 1880-1920

Holdings: paper version; online: vol.1-5 (1957-1962).
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 820.5 E5836
Note: changed title to English literature in transition, 1880-1920.

English literature in transition, 1880-1920

ELT publishes articles on fiction, poetry, drama, or subjects of cultural interest in the 1880 to 1920 period of British literature with an emphasis on less prominent authors of the period.
Holdings: paper version: vol.6-45 (1963-2002); online: vol.42-44 (1999-2001) abstracts only; full text is available from vol.1-38 (1957-1995) and from vol. 45 (2002) onwards.
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 820.5 E5836

We also hold the two volumes of the Special series: numbers 1-2 (1964 - 1966).
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 820.5 E5836s
Note: volumes 1-5 (1957-1962) were called English fiction in transition, 1880-1920.

Victorian poetry

We have the paper version from volume 1 (1963) onwards and online version from volume 1 (1963) to volume 33 (1995) and from volume 38 (2000) onwards.
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 821.805 V645

Browning Institute Studies

We have the paper version from volume 1 to 18 (1973-1990).
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 821.8305 B885
Changed title with volume 19 (1991) to Victorian literature and culture.

Victorian literature and culture

We have the paper version from volume 19 (1991) onwards and an online version from vol. 27 (1999) onwards.
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 821.8305 B885.2
Volumes 1 to 18 (1973-1990) were called Browning Institute Studies.

Australasian Victorian studies annual

Holdings: Volume 1 (1995).
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 820.5 A938c.2
Changed title with volume 2 (1996) to Australasian Victorian studies journal.

Australasian Victorian studies journal

Holdings: Volume 2 (1996) onwards
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection 820.5 A938c.3

Annual bibliography of Victorian studies

Distinguished for its completeness, accuracy and ease of use. Items are listed generically and under author and title. Also includes a comprehensive subject index as well as author and reviewer indexes.
Holdings: 2001 onwards
Location: Barr Smith Main Collection (Not for loan) 820.5 A617
Note: The latest year is shelved in the Reference Collection

Cumulative bibliography of Victorian studies

Indexes more than 500 journals in the humanities, sciences and social sciences. The language and literature section is divided into individual authors, bibliography, biographies, letters and diaries, critical studies and works.
Holdings: 1945-1969; 1970-2000
Location: Barr Smith Reference Collection 820.5 A6169

Cumulated index to reviews of books on Victorian studies

Cites reviews of books on the British Victorian period from about 1830 to the beginning of the War in 1914. Publications from the British colonies are included if they are political or administrative matters or if they have a bearing on the cultural relationship between Great Britain and her colonies.
Holdings: 1975-1989
Location: Barr Smith Reference Collection 820.5 A6171

Nineteenth-century literature criticism

Known as NCLC, and published by the Gale Group, this major reference tool for Victorian studies provides commentary on the careers and works of poets, novelists, short story writers, dramatists and philosophers who died between 1800 and 1899. Each volume presents overviews of four to eight authors with chronologically arranged criticism. Entries typically include an author portrait, an introduction to the author, a primary bibliography, annotated criticism and an annotated list of further reading sources.
Every fourth volume is a Topics volume covering major literary movements, trends and other topics related to nineteenth-century literature.
The indexing is typical of Gale publications: extremely thorough. As well as the indexes in each volume of NCLC, an annual cumulative title index to all volumes of NCLC is published separately.
Holdings: Volume 1 (1981) onwards
Location: Barr Smith Reference Collection 809.034 N714

Victorian periodicals: Aids to Research: A Selected Bibliography

Part of the Victoria Resarch Web, this Bibliography is prepared by Rosemary T. VanArsdel. Contains sections under hadings: GENERAL REFERENCES; MODERN TECHNOLOGY; BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES; OBITUARIES; HISTORIES OF INDIVIDUAL PERIODICALS; CRITICAL COMMENTARY. This is the eighth edition, September, 2007.

Waterloo directory of Victorian periodicals, 1824-1900. Phase I

Location: Barr Smith Reference Collection 052 W327

Waterloo directory of Irish newspapers and periodicals, 1800-1900. Phase II

Location: Barr Smith Reference Collection 052 W327.I

Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals, 1824-1900

An invaluable bibliographic reference work which indexes thousands of journal articles from the major 19th century British journals. It provides a unique record of contemporary opinion across a wide range of subjects, including: literature, religion, politics, social science, women's studies, science and the arts.
Includes tables of contents and identification of contributors, with bibliographies of their articles.
Location: Barr Smith Reference Collection 052 W511

Note: The web-based Curran index is a useful index of additions to and corrections of the original Wellesley, arranged alphabetically by journal title.

British Association for Victorian Studies

Founded in 2000, the British Association for Victorian Studies is a multi-disciplinary organisation, dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge about the Victorian period. From the website you can read their Newsletters and book reviews; they also maintain a list of useful Victorian web links.

The oscholars

oscholars is the website of a group of journals and webpages devoted to exploring the literature and arts of the fin-de-siècle. It is edited by a London Wilde scholar, David Rose; Angie Kingston, formerly of our own English Department, is Assistant editor for Australasia.

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