Open Educational Resources in English and American Literature
This page showcases a selection of open educational resources (OER) in English and American literature from a variety of repositories and publishers. It is by no means exhaustive and additional resources are available.
Open Textbooks
American Literature I: An Anthology of Texts From Early America Through the Civil War by Publication Date: 2019Beginning with transcribed oral histories from Native Americans and concluding with the post-Civil War poetry of Emily Dickinson, this anthology includes letters, journals, poetry, newspaper articles, pamphlets, sermons, and narratives as well as short fiction by numerous major and minor American writers.
Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution by ISBN: 9781940771465Publication Date: 2019Becoming America offers selections from the writings of sixty-nine authors whose diverse voices helped to create and establish early American literature.
British Literature I Anthology: From the Middle Ages to Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century by ISBN: 9781940771281Publication Date: 2018Presenting works by more than 50 authors, British Literature I permits readers to follow the development of traditional British literature from the heroic epic to the beginning of the traditional novel. It is continued by British Literature II (q.v.).
British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond by ISBN: 9781940771113Publication Date: 2018A continuation of British Literature I (q.v.), British Literature II presents 37 authors whose works exemplify their respective eras.
An Introduction to African and Afro-Diasporic Peoples and Influences in British Literature and Culture before the Industrial Revolution by Publication Date: 2021An Introduction to African and Afro-Diasporic Peoples and Influences in British Literature and Culture before the Industrial Revolution corrects, expands, and celebrates the presence of the African Diaspora in the study of British Literature, undoing some of the exclusionary and anti-Black narratives in British history and culture.
Writing the Nation: A Concise Guide to American Literature 1865 to Present by ISBN: 9781940771342Publication Date: 2015Writing the Nation discusses the key authors and foundational texts associated with American romanticism, realism, naturalism, and modernism.
Where to Find More
The following are dedicated search engines, repositories, and publishers hosted by organizations dedicated to open and institutions of higher education that can connect users with OER.
- The Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)from George Mason University
- MERLOTfrom California State University Long Beach
- Milne Open Textbooksfrom SUNY Geneseo
- OASISfrom SUNY Geneseo
- OER Commonsfrom ISKME
- Open Textbook Libraryfrom the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- OpenStaxfrom Rice University
- SkillsCommonsfrom California State University Long Beach
Additional Free and Low-Cost Options
The following free and affordable resource collections lack the wider flexibility of OER, but they offer tremendous value for instructors looking to reduce the textbook cost burden on students.
Open Access (OA) Collections
ACLS Humanities EBook, OA Collection
Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, Library of Congress
CORE! The Open Access Repository for the Humanities
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
LibriVox, Free Public Domain Audiobooks
