Kevin Mulcahy English and American Literature Librarian mulcahy@rci.rutgers.edu November 2009

Research Resources: Subject Research Guides: Literatures in English:
Book Review Sources

Use to track down initial critical responses to literary texts or to gauge the reception of critical texts.

Book Review Index Plus (1965+)
Provides citations to more than five million book reviews, drawn from a core of about 700 magazines and journals (including both popular and scholarly titles), supplemented by hundreds of other magazines on an apparently more occasional basis. More than 600,000 of the citations also include the full text of the reviews.

Book Review Digest. (1906+).
Includes citations and brief excerpts of reviews; covers relatively few journals, mostly non-scholarly (e.g. New Yorker)
ALEXANDER REF AI 3.B64.
(Also Dana, Douglass, Kilmer, and Robeson).

Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974.
Best for tracking down reviews of older critical works, though some literary texts are included.
ALEXANDER REF Z 1035.A1C64.
(Also Dana & Douglass).

Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Humanities Journals, 1802-1974.
Similar to the preceding title, though with a greater time span and a focus on humanities journals.
ALEXANDER REF Z 1035.A1C62.
(Also Dana & Robeson).

Guide to Critical Reviews of United States Fiction, 1870-1910. 2 volumes.
ALEXANDER REF Z1225.E35.
(Also Douglass & Robeson).

Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities. (1960-91).
An older annual, with some value for the period covered.
ALEXANDER Z 1219.I5.
(Also Dana & Robeson).

Literary Reviews in British Periodicals, 1798-1820: A Bibliography. 2 volumes.
A great aid to research. Find early reviews of Austen, Edgeworth, Mary Shelley, and Scott, among others. See also the following volumes:
ALEXANDER REF Z 2013.W36.
(Also Dana).

Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749-1774.
ALEXANDER REF Z 1035.A1F67 1990.
(Also Robeson).

Index to Book Reviews in England, 1775-1800.
ALEXANDER REF Z 1035.A1F67 1997.

The Romantics Reviewed: Contemporary Reviews of British Romantic Writers. 9 volumes.
A handy collection of reviews of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley and more.
ALEXANDER PR590.R43.
(Also Dana).

See also Periodical Indexes. A number of these indexes, including Humanities Full Text, Periodicals Index Online/Archive Online, and Readers' Guide Retrospective, include book reviews. And Periodical Collections also includes many book reviews).