Utilizing software developed at the University of Chicago, this online database of African-American poetry is a fine resource for people looking for a compendium of poems by numerous notable 18th and 19th century African-American poets. First-time users will want to read the users manual, which explains the software used to design the database, and how to best utilize the available search engine,...

Maintained by Professor Ann Woodlief at Virginia Commonwealth University, this site was created to serve as a gathering place for information and primary documents about the transcendentalist movement in American literature and philosophy during the 19th century. Along with profiles of some of the main persons associated with the movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, the...

The University of Pennsylvania English Department provides the Calls For Papers mailing list (CFP) to facilitate the announcement of conferences and publishing opportunities in English and American literature. CFP encourages conference or panel organizers and volume editors to post all such announcements to this list, whether or not they subscribe. Announcements can include upcoming conferences,...

Maintained and created by Richard Hathaway, an educator at the State University of New York at New Paltz, this site is a compendium of links and writings by and about the American writer Henry James. The site begins with a collection of electronic texts of James' works. Some of the more recent additions include short stories that James wrote specifically for The Atlantic Monthly during the 1860s....

NYU Libraries offers this extensive list of open-access digital collections and digital humanities projects related to English and American literature. This helpful resource list is part of a LibGuide dedicated to the subject; the full LibGuide includes suggestions for a range of both digital and print resources. The Digital Collections and Digital Humanities project list contains links to over 30...

What if Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights had been named Jimmy? Or can one imagine J.D. Salinger’s Fanny as, say, Sarah? Authors frequently spend long hours determining the appropriate names for their characters and readers often develop a close bond with these personas as they begin to develop throughout a novel or short story. In a very interesting twist, a number of contemporary authors are...

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is one of the most prestigious prizes in American letters. It has been known to launch careers and help books that would otherwise languish on the shelves. While there are a few interesting tidbits on the PEN/Faulkner website (News, for instance, provides interesting links to coverage of books, authors, and the awards), the real gem of the site is the...

The Edith Wharton Society has created a Website to promote the study and discussion of the life and work of this major American novelist and short story writer. Wharton (1862-1937) -- author of Ethan Frome (1911) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence (1920), among many other titles -- is highly regarded as a writer of keen insight and polished prose who deftly exposed the social...

This Website is devoted to "encouraging the enjoyment of Cooper's 32 novels, appreciation of his ideas, and providing useful information to students, scholars, and readers." And the site does not disappoint, standing as one of the most comprehensive single-author Websites we've seen. It provides copious text by and about Cooper, including online copies of little-known Cooper texts -- mostly...

Composer, distinguished author and translator, and man of belles letters, Paul Bowles passed away in 1999 in Morocco, which was for many years was his primary place of residence. Bowles best-known work is probably his novel The Sheltering Sky, though he also translated Sartre's "Huis Clos" (upon which he bestowed the title "No Exit") and was an accomplished composer of music for the theatre....