The Rose Main Reading Room, heart of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, is home to a vast collection of language and literature titles. The collection consists of multiple shelves devoted to the classics, American and European literature, as well as dictionaries, book review indexes, and literary criticism.

Every day, hundreds of visitors to the General Research Division are greeted by the works of world-renowned writers such as: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou, Miguel de Cervantes, Umberto Eco, and many more. The General Research Division has recently published a Research Guide to complement this collection. Though the guide primarily focuses on electronic resources, including digital versions of many of the titles found in the room, the Rose Main Reading Room allows for in-person browsing (and the guide provides a helpful map), while  our electronic resources  allow for keyword searching.

This guide aims to simplify the extensive collection by highlighting leading resources related to general literature including dictionaries, biographies, indexes, collected works, anthologies, literature criticism, and electronic resources. It also presents a starting point for researchers before proceeding to the Library's more specialized collections. Some of the categories found within the guide include: how to find literary criticism and dissertations, author databases and biographies, literary journals, and bibliographies and book reviews.

The Bibliography of American Literature is one example, and is a great starting point for your literary research. It describes the writings of American authors from the American Revolution to 1930, and lists more than 37,000 works. Project Muse is another great resource which provides access to e-books, full text peer-reviewed scholarly journals, and reviews in the humanities and social sciences. Searches can be narrowed by author, language, date, and publisher. If you're looking for literary analysis, Literature Resource Center provides full-text literary criticism, biographical information, and up-to-date reviews on more than 130,000 writers from around the world, in all disciplines, and from all eras.

To begin exploring the New York Public Library's collections, please sign up for a Library card.  New York State residents or visitors to New York  (domestic or international), can apply online here. Further information on Library cards can be found here. 

Whether you're just starting your research or are well within your project, the Language and Literature Resources in the General Research Division research guide will provide you access to multiple collections and databases to further your scholarship. 

This post was co-created with Miriam Gianni, General Research Division, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.