Hekman Library: English: Find Background Info

Recommended Reference Sources

Dictionary of Literary Biography
Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online provides authoritative information about authors from all time periods and from all parts of the world while placing them in the larger perspective of literary history.
Literary Reference Center
Covers broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and time frames. Wide range of subjects covered including plot summaries, literary criticism, book reviews, classic and contemporary poems, short stories and novels, and author interviews.
Combining information from major respected reference works, books, literary journals and original content from EBSCO, Literary Reference Center features an expansive collection of author biographies, plot summaries and full-text essays from leading publishers. It also includes literary reference books and monographs, cover-to-cover full text for literary magazines and book reviews from the most prestigious publications. It offers poems from hundreds of sources, short stories, classic texts, author interviews and much more.

Poets.org
From the Academy of American Poets, this site provides full-text poems as well as biographical and critical background on major U.S. poets.