Have I mentioned lately how much I love the internet? In the February/March issue of Bookforum they have a small article about web-based texts in which they list a number of projects and websites that are making author archives available. If I’m excited to explore some of these sites, I know somebody else out there will be too.
- Jonathan Edwards Center. Hosted by Yale, the public has access to about 25,000 pages of Edward’s writing some of which has never been published. And it looks like there will be more to come.
- Walt Whitman Archive has facsimile and e-text versions of Whitman’s work available including all the editions of Leaves of Grass. There is also a biography, essays, photos, and a slew of other Whitman stuff so you can “sing the body electric.”
- The William Blake Archive. The site is sponsored by the Library of Congress and in addition to Blake’s texts, also includes illuminated books, drawings and engravings.
- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. This site has, well, the complete work of Charles Darwin. But that’s not all. There are also handwritten manuscripts, a Darwin bibliography, and over 180 ancillary texts. A great looking site for the highly evolved.
- The Manuscripts of Madame Bovary. The site is in French so you’ll have to have Google translate it for you unless, of course, you know French. There are more than 4,000 pages of drafts and forty-six folios available here including maps and scenarios sketched by M. Flaubert himself.
- The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. This site is the one I find most exciting at the moment. I don’t know how I missed this page when I looked for Emerson stuff online. Along with his complete published works they also encourage people to send in essays about Emerson and their experience with his work. I’m going to have to investigate that further. It might be fun to put something together about my Emerson project.
If you know of any other great web archives like these, I’d love to hear about them. Leave a comment and the link that way we can all benefit.
I’m considering marrying the Internet…
Check out this site. It is actually a concordance that allows one to search for words throughout the text of an author’s works. The number of authors and their works is impressive.
http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/concordance/
I just heard today that my library is working with the english department to get something like 20,000 uncopyrighted texts–english literature works from the Elizabethan and Restoration period online and searchable in my library. I am a little hazy on the details, but it sounded quite nifty. It would be somehow connected to the full text OED and you would be able to look up a word and see where it first occurred in a literary text (well the old english words anyway). I’m looking forward to hearing more about this. I think The Library of Congress has extensive online materials available for viewers as well! Yes, there is a plethora of information out there–you just have to find it!
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/james.html
Huge database of William James’s writing
Isn’t the web an amazing place? I do love the way that online access to literary material like this is become ever broader. Wonderful!
The British Library site is supposed to be very good
I think you’d probably like the Perseus Project for classical literature. Also, I was fortunate to work on the Documenting the American South project when it first started; a couple of my favorite manuscripts to scan and correct were Kate Plake’s The Southern Husband Outwitted by His Union Wife, and Austin Steward’s Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman.
Sylvia, can be a brdie’s maid?
Oh, Victorian literature. Thanks Brad!
Danielle, your library’s project sounds fantastic, especially linking it with the OED. Be sure to say something when it’s up an running, I’d love to browse it
Kurt, woo! William James! Thanks for that one!
Litlove, the fact that we can access books and lectures and all kinds of things that were once fairly localized is one of the greatest benefits of the internet in my opinion.
Winchester Whisperer, yes, the British Library is good. Thanks for the suggestion.
John, I’ll definitely be spending some time on the Perseus Project and the other sites including the manuascripts. We’re supposed to be getting lots of snow this weekend, maybe I’ll curl up with my laptop
That is really neat that you got to work on the Documenting the South Project.
This is wonderful! I’m trying to make a list of these on my site, at least for authors and sites I like. I just added five to the list!
Awesome.