Modern Language Association: The major professional organization for post-secondary teachers and scholars of English and Foreign Languages.
http://www.mla.org/
Internet Public Library: Online Literary Criticism Collection: Contains 3810 critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by literary period.
http://www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit
Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts: Very comprehensive resource providing links to a vast array of folktales and myths. Site includes texts translated or edited by site author (D.L. Ashliman) as well as links to external websites. Browsable by subject and author. Users can find everything from popular fairytales to Russian ghost stories. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
American Verse Project: An important electronic archive of volumes of American poetry housed at the University of Michigan. Most of the archive is made up of 19th century poetry, although a few 18th century and early 20th century texts are included. In many cases, the texts selected are the only existing editions of the author’s work. Collection is browsable by author. Site supports simple searches, Boolean, and proximity searches, which allow one to track the occurrence of specific words and phrases throughout the collection. http://www.hti.umich.edu/english/amverse/
Favorite Poem Project: A multimedia site. Project started by poet laureate Robert Pinsky in connection with Library of Congress to construct audio and video documentaries featuring Americans reading and discussing their favorite poems. Texts of poems also included. http://www.favoritepoem.org
Alex: A Catalogue of Electronic Texts on the Internet: Alex is a catalog of books and other works on the Internet in case you didn’t find what you needed in Bartleby or Project Gutenberg. The focus is on English and American literature and Western philosophy. In addition to searching for texts, you can search within single or multiple texts, using key words to locate themes. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/alex/"
Bartleby.com: Extensive collection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and standard reference works online. Offers a search function. http://bartleby.com
British Library: This site contains thorough descriptions of exhibits, collections, and sound files from the British Library. The descriptions are informative and occasionally illustrated with online images or documents. The Digital Library is rather sparse, but the Gutenberg 2000 Project, which includes a complete online digital Gutenberg Bible, is of interest. http://www.bl.uk/
Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia: Holdings include 5,000 publicly accessible texts in a variety of disciplines and a number of languages. This link is to the English Online Resources Page, which is browsable by subject (e.g. Letters from Liberia) and contains many publicly accessible documents. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/eng-on.html
Humanities Text Initiative: Unrestricted resources include the American Verse Project (see below), The Early Modern English Collection contains a diverse selection of British and American public domain texts (Charles W. Chesnutt is among authors represented by multiple works) and is browsable by author and searchable. The Middle English Collection is also extensive. University of Michigan.
http://www.hti.umich.edu/all/unrestrict.html"
Project Gutenberg: Extensive collection of on-line literature and reference works; this link takes you to the author listing. Catalogue is searchable by author, title, subject, etc. http://sailor.gutenberg.org/by-author.html
Literary Resources on the Net: Comprehensive compilation of links to literary sites with a focus on English and American literature; the focus is on larger sites with individual electronic texts generally excluded. Links are categorized by time period and subject. Database is searchable (by single words). Author is Jack Lynch, English Dept., Rutgers University.. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/classic.html
The English Server Drama Collection: A collection of both long and short plays and screenplays (complete scripts) in English. Site archives both classic (e.g. Shakespeare, Shaw, Johnson, Gay, Moliere, and Sophocles) and and contemporary plays. It also includes criticism and links to other theater -related sites. Sponsored by Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/drama/
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Site includes a discussion area, an online glossary and a search engine which enables word and phrase searches of designated texts. Works are categorized by genre.
http://the-tech.mit.edu:80/Shakespeare/works.html
Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet: Award-winning site. Very comprehensive. Major sections include Works, Life and Times, Theater, Criticism, Sources and Renaissance; each section contains extensive annotated links to relevant scholarly websites. Many primary documents are included, such as online editions of biographical documents. Author is Terry A. Gray. http://daphne.palomar.edu/Shakespeare/
Theater History on the Web: A Resource for Theatre Historians and Students of the Theatre’s History: Provides annotated links to quality sites worldwide. Links are classified according to time period (Classical, Medieval, etc.) and subject area (Arts and Theatre Resources).
http://www.artsci.washington.edu/drama/jack.html
Professional Organizations
Criticism
Folklore and Mythology
Poetry
Primary Texts
Subject Directories & Search Engines
Theater
Women's Literature
Victorian Women Writers Project: "The goal of the Victorian Women Writers Project is to produce highly accurate transcriptions of literary works by British women writers of the late 19th century. The works, selected with the assistance of the Advisory Board, will include anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, and volumes of poetry and verse drama. Considerable attention will be given to the accuracy and completeness of the texts, and to accurate bibliographical descriptions of them."
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/"