ENGLISH 1B: Reading and Composition

• Literature Resource Center (LRC)
  Indexes biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers by providing access to content of numerous print counterparts including Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and Dictionary of Literary Biography.
  
• Literature Online
  Includes more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 131 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources. Includes reference works on literary criticism and biographical information. Go directly to Literature Online - poetry texts, Literature Online - drama texts, Literature Online - prose texts, Literature Online - search authors or Literature Online - Criticism and Reference
  
• Literature Criticism Online
  Contains thousands of essays from the Gale literary criticism books including: Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism (CMLC), Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC), Drama Criticism (DC), Literature Criticism from 1400-1800 (LC), Poetry Criticism (PC), Shakespearean Criticism (SC), Short Story Criticism (SSC), and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (TCLC).
  

Examples of reference sources for background information (links are to OskiCat record)

Critical companion to William Shakespeare:  a literary reference to his life and work

Dictionary of Shakespeare

Encyclopedia of the Renaissance

The major Shakespearean tragedies; a critical bibliography

The essential Shakespeare:  an annotated bibliography of major modern studies

Hamlet:  an annotated bibliography of Shakespeare Studies 1604-1998

William Shakespeare's Hamlet:  a sourcebook

 Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War

The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history