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English and American Literature Subject Guide — Historical Text Databases: American Literature

Resources for researching English and American literature

Selected Databases

These databases contain the images of material written and published in America from 1639 to the early 20th century, and sometimes beyond.  Most of these materials are accessible by keywords as well as by author and title, and researchers can also search by place of publication, imprint, and language of publication.  For best results, be certain to use alternative spellings.
The newspapers and periodicals listed below were published in the United States from 1690 until the present.  Although a few of the resources separately index by authors and subjects, most are best searched by keywords.  For best results, be certain to try alternative spellings.
  • FictionMags Index
  • A freely available resource indexing hundreds of thousands of magazines published in English from the nineteenth-century to the present.  There are indexes for author/illustrator, title, series, and issue-by-issue.  There are also indexes for anthologies and collections reprinting the contents of these magazines, and original biographical data about the authors and illustrators are sometimes given.  Note:  this is not a full-text database though some of the magazines indexed are available online.