Introduction
The Law Library has an outstanding Law, Literature and the Arts collection on
the second floor of the library ( http://local.law.umn.edu/library/collections.html).
Numerous relevant materials can also be found in other parts of the Law Library
and at the University Libraries. This guide provides information to help you
find works at any library and online.
Bibliographies
The following bibliographies are excellent tools for identifying works related to law and literature:
Guide to Law and Literature for Teachers, Students, and Researchers. Paul J. Heald. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, c1998. Law Library PN56.L33 H43x 1998.
An International Guide to Law and Literature Studies. Christine Alice Corcos. Buffalo, N.Y.: W.S. Hein, 2000. Law Library Literature and the Arts. Z6514.L38 C67 2000.
Justice Denoted: The Legal Thriller in American, British, and Continental Courtroom Literature. Compiled and edited by Terry White. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Law Library Literature and the Arts Z5917.L3 J87 2003
Law in Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Law-Related Works. Edited by Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette. Troy, N.Y. Whitston Pub. Co.,1998. Law Library PN56.L33 L395x 1998.
Legal Novels: An Annotated Bibliography. Karen L. Kretschman. [Austin]: Tarleton Law Library, University of Texas School of Law, 1976. Law Library Reserve KF1 .T37 no.13.
Literature and Law in the Middle Ages: A Bibliography of Scholarship. John A. Alford, Dennis P. Seniff. New York: Garland Pub., 1984. Law Library K487.L77 A38 1984.
Magill's Bibliography of Literary Criticism: Selected Sources for the Study of More than 2,500 Outstanding Works of Western Literature. Edited by Frank N. Magill, associate editors, Stephen L. Hanson, Patricia King Hanson. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, c1979. Wilson Library PN523 .B52x 1979; Wilson Library Reference PN523 .B52x 1979.
MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures. New York: Modern Language Association of America, c1970- Wilson Library Quarto 016.4 M72; Wilson Library Quarto PB6 .M61x (Also available online. See Periodical Indexes section below.)
Novel Verdicts: A Guide to Courtroom Fiction. Jon L. Breen. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1999. Law Library Literature and the Arts PR830.C68 B73 1999.
Searching Library Catalogs
Searching a library catalog will lead you to additional resources, including books and periodicals (but not articles).
MNCAT ( http://mncat.lib.umn.edu) is the University of Minnesota's online catalog. It includes holdings from the Law Library, as well as all other University libraries.
WorldCat ( http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wcat.cgi) is an online catalog of libraries all over the world. If you find a book though WorldCat that is not held by the University of Minnesota, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan: http://www.law.umn.edu/library/umlawstudentsaccessmaterials.html#ill
The most precise way to search for information about a topic is to use the standardized subject headings created by the Library of Congress. Most libraries use these headings in their catalogs. If you do not know the subject headings covering your topic, try a keyword search with terms you think may be relevant. After finding a work that is of interest to you in the catalog, look at the subject headings used for this work and then use them search the catalog again. Library of Congress subject headings covering law and literature and literary criticism include:
Law and literature
Law in literature
Legal stories
Literary criticism
Literature and society
Literature history and criticism
Finding Periodical Articles
Keyword searching in full text journal databases is an effective way to retrieve articles covering a topic, but many databases are incomplete. To ensure that you will not miss important articles omitted from these databases, search also in periodical indexes. These indexes usually provide access to more journals and cover a longer span of time than many full text databases. The following periodical indexes are useful for finding articles covering law and literature:
Legal Periodical Indexes
Relevant Legal Periodicals
Law, Culture and the Humanities. Law, Culture and the Humanities. London: Hodder Arnold, c2005- . Law Library Periodicals Per .L34.
Law and Literature. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, c2002- . Law Library Periodicals Per.C2735.
Law, Text, Culture. Wollongong, NSW : University of Wollongong, 1994- . Law Library Periodicals Per.L424.
Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature. New York, NY : Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Jacob Burns Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, c1989-c2001. Law Library Periodicals Per .C2735.
To find other periodicals, search MNCAT using a subject heading search as follows: [subject heading] periodicals. The full text of some periodicals will be available electronically through university subscriptions. To access the electronic journals subscribed to by the University, go to the University Libraries page: http://www.lib.umn.edu/articles/ej.phtml.
Other Periodical Indexes
The following indexes and descriptions are provided by the University Libraries. Others are listed at http://www.lib.umn.edu/site/indexes.phtml:
| Academic Search Premier |
| Coverage: |
Coverage varies, some starting with 1975 - present, updated continuously |
| Description |
This resource is licensed by the MINITEX Library Information Network with state appropriations from the Minnesota Higher Education Services Office (MHESO) and the Minnesota Department of Education. The world's largest academic multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,600 scholarly publications, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed journals. Coverage spans virtually every area of academic study and offers information dating as far back as 1975. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/asp.cgi |
| Columbia Granger's World of Poetry Online |
| Description |
An index to poems in anthologies. It includes 250,000 poetry citations indexed by title, first line, last line, author, subject, and searchable by keyword and by author categories. Also provides biographical entries, bibliographies, anthology descriptors and full text versions of poems in the public domain. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wpo.cgi |
| Essay and General Literature Index |
| Coverage |
1985 to present |
| Description |
Find contents in collected works focusing on humanities and social sciences. The Libraries' subscription to this resource allows for 4 users at any one time. If you get a busy signal, please wait a few minutes and try accessing the site again. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/egli.cgi |
| Essay Finder |
| Description |
LitFINDER: Essays provides the full texts of 2800 essays on many subjects, including essays on architecture, art, drama, economics, history, literature, psychology, science, sociology, and other subjects. Find an essay by its author, by the author’s nationality, or by the time period in which it was written, or by its broad subject, or by specific keywords within the essay. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/lf.cgi |
| Humanities & Social Sciences Retrospective |
| Coverage |
1906 - 1983 |
| Description |
Humanities & Social Sciences Retrospective searches nearly 1200 of the most important journals in these subject areas. Updated, uniform subject headings facilitate your search, with the original subject headings also provided. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/hssr.cgi |
| IBR: International Bibliography of Book Reviews |
| Coverage |
1985 - present, updated bi-annually. |
| Description |
International bibliography of book reviews of scholarly literature. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/ibr.cgi |
| Literature Online (LION) |
| Coverage |
Dates vary |
| Description |
With hundreds of thousands of full-text works of poetry, prose and drama in English, together with the definitive online criticism and reference library, Literature Online is one of the world's largest cross-searchable databases of literature and criticism. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/lion.cgi |
| LitFINDER |
| Other Names |
Poem Finder; Story Finder |
| Description |
LitFINDER provides either the full text or a citation to a print source in which to read any of 125,000 poems, 5000 stories, 2800 essays, 1000 plays, and 1800 speeches, with new material added regularly. You can search by many ways, including author, subjects, nationality, and time period. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/lf.cgi |
| MLA International Bibliography |
| Coverage |
1926 - present |
| Description |
Indexes scholarship on English and American Literature, folklore, language and linguistics, and dramatic arts. Covers over 4,400 periodicals published worldwide in all languages, as well as critical monographs, reference works, conference proceedings, and abstracts of dissertations. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/mla.cgi |
| Periodicals Index Online |
| Coverage |
1665 - 1995 |
| Description |
PIO is an electronic index to the tables of contents of thousands of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their first issues to 1995. Every article is indexed. PIO currently indexes over twelve million journal articles in over 3,500 journals. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pci.cgi |
| Play Finder |
| Description |
LitFINDER: Plays provides 1000 plays of many kinds, from all time periods, in English or translated into English. Search for plays in many ways. Brief biographies are provided for authors. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/lf.cgi |
| Poem Finder |
| Description |
Covers poetry from antiquity to the present; it contains 500,000 citations for poems by 70,000 authors from 1,800 anthologies, 2,600 single-author collections, and 4,000 periodicals. Contains the full text of some poems online. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/lf.cgi |
| Story Finder |
| Description |
LitFINDER: Stories provides the full texts of nearly 5000 stories, from all periods and all nationalities, in English translation. For some additional stories, it provides the citation to a book or periodical in which you can read the story. You can search by author, by title of story, by nationality, by period, or by subject. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/lf.cgi |
| Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive |
| Coverage |
1902 - 1990 |
| Description |
The Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive presents one of the world's premier contemporary literary reviews in fully searchable image format. Content covers 1902 to 1990. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/get/14061 |
| Twentieth Century North American Drama |
| Description |
Contains 1,122 plays by 170 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. More than 150 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors. |
| URL |
http://www.lib.umn.edu/get/nadr |
Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Dictionaries and encyclopedias available at the University of Minnesota include:
Critical Keywords in Literary and Cultural
Theory. Julian Wolfreys, Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Wilson Library PN44.5 .W64 2004
Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism
Edited by
Martin Coyle ... [et al.]. Detroit : Gale Research,1990. Wilson Library
Reference PN41 .E53x 1990
A Glossary of Literary Terms. M. H. Abrams, Geoffrey
Galt Harpham. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, c2009. Wilson Library
Reference PN41 .A184 2009
Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language,
Theory. X.J. Kennedy, Dana Gioia, Mark Bauerlein. New York :
Pearson/Longman, c2009. Wilson Library PN44.5 .K46 2009
Literary Theory: A Reintroduction. David Ayers.
Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub.,2008. Wilson Library PR21 .A94 2008
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chris
Baldick. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Wilson Library PN41
.C67 2008
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