Skip to main content

English

Databases

Find articles relevant to your subject by searching databases.

Look at the guides to get the most from each database.

These databases are available for use by Leeds staff and students both on and off-site within the terms of the license agreements. Off-site users will need to login using their Leeds username and password.

You can also see a complete list of databases for English

Key databases

20th Century Drama

Find full text of over 2,000 plays from the English-speaking world from the 1890s onwards with new content added regularly. This database allows advanced searching to refine your search by theatre company, director, place/date first performed, genre and subject, as well as the standard keyword, title or playwright. It features plays from noted playwrights as well as lesser known dramatists.

Guide to using 20th Century Drama

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature

This database allows you to search for journal articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, and collections of essays and doctoral dissertations published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. All aspects and periods of English literature are covered, from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. This database is updated monthly. It includes material in languages other than English.

Guide to using Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature

Box of Broadcasts

BoB (Box of Broadcasts) National is a shared online off-air TV and radio recording service for UK higher and further education institutions. It enables you to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ TV and radio channels. The recorded programmes are then kept indefinitely and added to a growing media archive (currently at over 1 million programmes), with all content shared by users across all subscribing institutions.

Bridgeman Education

Bridgeman Education is a complete visual resource offering over 1,000,000 digital images of art, history and culture from global museums, galleries, private collections and contemporary artists all copyright cleared for educational use. Due to technical limitations, Bridgeman Education is only available on campus, or through Desktop Anywhere.

Guide to using Bridgeman Education

Dimensions

Dimensions is the world’s largest linked-research database, covering articles, grants, patents, clinical trials, datasets, policy documents and technical reports. It also provides research metrics. There is a free version open to all, or a subscription version.

You must register for an account with your Leeds email address to get full access, from a computer within the University’s IP range or through the virtual desktop. Once you are registered, you can access the database from off-campus. If you are a student, you can put “student” in the job title field.

Guide to using Dimensions

Early English Books Online

Almost all subjects are covered: English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. Contains digital page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700, beginning with the first book printed in English by William Caxton. Contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Search or read the full text, and view page images and any illustrative content. This database is updated quarterly.

Guide to using Early English Books Online

Early European Books

Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the end of the seventeenth century, offering full colour, high resolution facsimile images of rare and hard to access printed sources to 1700. The project to create this database is working in partnership with five national Libraries to digitise their curated collections from this period.

Guide to using Early European Books

Eighteenth Century Collections Online

This database, which contains over 180,000 titles, allows you to search or read the full text of books, pamphlets, essays or broadsides printed in the UK or the Americas between 1701 and 1800, on any topic. Works included are primarily in English but some foreign language material printed in England is also present. As well as searching the text you can view page images and illustrative content. The database is updated annually.

Guide to using Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)

Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts covers the international literature in all aspects of the study of language. This includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The database indexes journal articles, books, dissertations and working papers from 1973 onwards.

Guide to using Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)

Literature Online

Search and find the full text of over 350,000 works of English and American poetry, prose and drama, over 300 full text literature journals and many detailed works of reference and criticism. It also links out to authoritative websites. LION is underpinned by lists which you can browse arranged by author, period, nationality, literary movement, ethnicity and gender. Updated 9-10 times a year.

Guide to using Literature Online

Loeb Classical Library

Classical Greek and Latin texts with English translations. Fully searchable literature: epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; those Church Fathers who made particular use of pagan culture. More than 530 volumes of Latin, Greek and English texts.

Guide to using Loeb Classical Library

MLA International Bibliography

Citations and some full text to articles and other materials for literature, language, linguistics, folklore and film. From 1926 onwards, and updated twice a year.

Guide to using MLA International Bibliography

Nineteenth Century Collections Online

Nineteenth Century Collections Online contains primary source collections of the nineteenth century. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. Four modules are available at Leeds: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture; and European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Search for full text biographies of all notable deceased public figures who have influenced British history and culture. Useful for any subject. The database is updated three times a year. The printed volumes of all editions and supplemental volumes are shelved in the Brotherton Library General Reference Collection.

Guide to using Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Oxford English Dictionary Online

The OED is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language across the English-speaking world. As well as giving definitive meanings it also acts a guide to pronunciation, lists variant spellings and provides an etymological analysis, employing over 2.5 million quotations to demonstrate usages. Updated quarterly.

Guide to using Oxford English Dictionary Online

Project MUSE

Project MUSE is a platform for digital humanities and social sciences journals and e-books from a number of scholarly publishers. It also includes open access content.

Scopus

Scopus is a large abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature from more than 18,500 journals and quality web sources, with smart tools to track, analyse and visualize research. Coverage starts from 1823.

Guide to using Scopus

The Shakespeare Collection

Access and study an extensive collection of authoritative materials supporting literary, textual, historical, and performance studies. Online access to the full-text annotated works from The Arden Shakespeare, general reference data, full text scholarly periodicals, and reprinted criticism, the Gordon Crosse Theatrical Diaries, criticism, reviews, images, and reference. Updated regularly.

Times Digital Archive

Search the complete digital edition of The Times (London), from 1785-1985, using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.

Guide to using Times Digital Archive

Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2009

The only literary weekly to offer comprehensive coverage of the latest and most important publications, in every subject, in several languages as well as reviewing current theatre, cinema, music, and exhibitions. This resource is potentially useful for students and researchers of English literature and other humanities or social science subjects, and anyone needing to find out more about the reception of a 20th century literary or artistic work when it first appeared. It enables you to track the views of influential opinion makers and the controversies of the day or explore in depth the literary activity of the last 100 years. More than 250,000 reviews, letters, poems and articles are available, with full page images.

Guide to using Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2009

Web of Science

Search for journal articles using three databases; Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. A current awareness service provides citation alerts for newly added journal articles. Each database is updated weekly.

Guide to using Web of Science