Literary Research Guide: A Guide to Reference Sources for the Study of Literatures in English and Related Topics

James L. Harner's Literary Research Guide, which Choice calls "the standard guide in the field," evaluates important reference materials in English studies. Since the publication of the first edition in 1989, tens of thousands of students and educators have used the Guide as an aid to scholarly research.



In the new edition Harner has added entries describing resources published since May 2001 and has revised nearly half the entries from the fourth edition. The fifth edition contains more than 1,000 entries, which discuss an additional 1,555 books, articles, and electronic resources and cite 723 reviews. Readers of earlier editions will notice the inclusion of substantially more electronic resources, particularly reliable sites sponsored by academic institutions and learned societies, to account for the proliferation of bibliographic databases, text archives, and other online resources. This edition also features a new section on cultural studies.



The annotations for each work

• describe its type, its scope, its major limitations, and its organization


• present parts of a typical entry


• list the type and number of indexes


• evaluate coverage, organization, and accuracy


• explain its uses in research


• cite significant reviews that more fully define the importance or uses of the work or its place in the scholarly tradition


• note related works, including supplementary, complementary, or superseded ones not accorded separate entries in the Guide

The Guide concludes with name, title, and subject indexes.

James L. Harner is the Samuel Rhea Gammon Professor of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University, College Station.