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Primary & Secondary Sources

This guide will help you learn the difference between primary and secondary sources in various subject areas and provides resources for locating primary sources, both in the library and on the open web.

Literary History Resources

British Novelists Archive Collection (BBC) Archive of complete interviews and talks with leading authors charting the history of the 20th century British novel. These vary in length from five minutes up to an hour, and in year of broadcast from 1937 (Virginia Woolf) to 2009 (Zadie Smith).

The Victorian Web Site dedicated to all aspects of Victorian culture. Thousands of scholarly articles, primary texts, images and related material on Victorian literature, politics, science, technology and much more.

Victorian Literature & Culture: Sites for Online Research

Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Individual Authors

The Edgar Allen Poe Digital Collection

Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Contains all known surviving fiction manuscripts handwritten by Austen. The manuscripts range from early writings by an 11 or 12 year old Austen to manuscripts from the year of her death in 1817. The project contains not only the digitized manuscripts but also full transcription, commentary on provenance and other aspects of the work, and a description of their physical condition.

Faulkner at Virginia Here you can listen in on William Faulkner’s sessions with audiences at the University of Virginia in 1957 and 1958, during his two terms as UVA’s first Writer-in-Residence

The Carlyle Letters Online Here you will find a perspective on the 19th century like no other, through the words of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Browse over 10,000 of their collected letters by date, by recipient, by subject, and by volume. We invite you to explore a correspondence that features some of the most influential artistic, philosophic, and literary personalities of the day.