Salem Literature - Thrall Databases - Databases & Virtual Reference Resources at Middletown Thrall Library

Includes Critical Insights - Works & Authors:

"This comprehensive series distills the best of both classic and current literary criticism of the world's most-studied literature. Each volume in the series focuses on an individual author's entire body of work or on a single work of literature.

Edited and written by some of academe's most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights provides authoritative, in-depth scholarship suitable for students and teachers alike."

and Critical Survey of Long Fiction:

"Offers 678 profiles of major writers of long fiction throughout history and the world, including analyses of their significant novels and novellas. Discusses the novel in overview essays by time period, country, ethnicity, and genre, and provides valuable resource material."

(descriptions provided by Salem Press)

Contents in Critical Insights are divided into Works (individual titles) and Authors. These some of the many works and authors are currently available in print at Thrall as well as through this online database:

Critical Insights: Authors

Jane Austen
Gwendolyn Brooks
T. S. Eliot
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Frost
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ernest Hemingway
Barbara Kingsolver
Toni Morrison

Critical Insights: Works

Death of a Salesman
Dracula
Great Expectations
The Great Gatsby
The Handmaid's Tale
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Joy Luck Club
A Streetcar Named Desire
Tales of Poe
To Kill a Mockingbird

Outside the library? Please click here to access Salem Literature.

At the library?
>> Please click here to access Salem Literature.

Access Options:

This database can be accessed from any of Thrall Library's public Internet or research computers.

Concerning access outside the library:

Members of Middletown Thrall Library may log in to this service using their library barcode.

Tips & Special Features:

Once you reach Salem Literature, you can click the "+" icon to expand Works and Authors list. After you click an author or title, you will be taken to a search screen, where you can enter one or more keywords and then click Search Now.

If you are not searching for anything in particular and simply want to explore all articles associated with an author or title, just click Search Now, and click on articles that interest you when they appear.

Search results can be filtered by clicking "All" (see all articles), "Biography" (about the author's life), Criticism (reviews and analysis of an author's works), "Overview," and "Resources" (bibliographies, charts, and more).

Click "Advanced Search" to search individual works or authors. Advanced Search also lets you limit your search to geographical regions from around the world.

At the top of the Salem Literature database menu are tabs you can click. These include:

Browse:
- by genre: drama, long fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short fiction
- by location: Africa, Asia, Central America and West Indies, Europe, North America, South America
Authors - An alphabetical index of authors in this series
Works - An alphabetical list of literary titles

If you like, you can register with Salem Literature by clicking the "Logon" tab at the top of the screen so that, each time you log in, you can save articles, searches, and citations.

Thrall owns print copies of all titles in this series.

In addition to these reference works, we have many other excellent literary and literary criticism reference works as well as circulating critical studies and literary works that might interest you.

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