Creative Writing: Home
(image: Dave Morrison Photography, Creative Commons license)
As a creative writing student, you will need to use a variety of resources for a variety of reasons. You might want to find critical opinion on a piece of writing or author, you may want to research historical context for your own characterisation and you may need inspiration! The Library has many resources you can use.
If you are a new student you might find our New Student Guide a useful starting point.
Creative Writing Books
A selection of our books on creative writing and authorship.
Key Resources
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University of St Andrews LibrarySearch the University's Collections. Find print and electronic books, journal articles, rare books, archives, photographs, theses and research publications and museum items.
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British Library CatalogueSearch the main catalogue for books, journals, newspapers, printed maps, electronic resources and sound archive items held at the British Library
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WorldcatSearch over 2 billion records held at more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.
Below is a list of databases which provide access to literary texts. Additional resources for primary texts are listed on the Specialist Databases tab.
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Early English Books Online (EEBO) via Proquestdigital facsimiles of nearly every book published in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and other works in English printed from 1473-1700.
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Historical Textsformerly known as Jisc Historic books, full-text; contains the full text or page images of over 350,000 books published in Britain from 1475 to 1900. The service draws together content from two of the best-known and long established early book collections: Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) plus 65,000 19th century books from the British Library collection
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Literature Online (LION)Full text of poetry, drama and prose – includes more modern fiction (works published from 1477 to present)
Below is a list of the key databases for literature. These provide more functionality than SEEKER and are particularly useful if you want to look at a range of materials on a specific author or look at a literary period or literary movement. LION will allow you to search all 3 databases at once.
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Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)an index of over 880,000 records of secondary sources - books, articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, essay collections and doctoral dissertations published worldwide. Part of LION (Literature Online)
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Literature Online (LION)More than 350,000 searchable works of English and American poetry, drama and prose. Includes more than 380 full-text journals as well as other key reference and criticism resources. This database allows you to search LION, ABELL and MLA in one go
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MLA International Bibliography (via EBSCOhost)index to papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies on literature, language, linguistics and folklore, from 1926 onward. Produced by the Modern Language Association of America
Library Resources for Inspiration!
(Image: Library of Congress - http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/99402449/ - No known restrictions on publication.)
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Ethnographic Video Onlineover 1800 documentary films as well as video, written ethnographies, field notes, memoirs, and contemporary studies, covering human behavior the world over
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The Listener Historical Archivedeveloped as the medium for reproducing broadcasts, The Listener (1929-1991) was the weekly newspaper published by the BBC. Provides an insight into the intellectual and cultural history of the twentieth century, and also to the golden years of radio and television.
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Mass Observation OnlineThe Mass Observation Archive is a huge database of diaries, directives, surveys, photographs and reports collected in the UK from 1937-1992
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Migration to New WorldsUsing primary source materials, Migration to the New Worlds provides insight into the stories of migrants from the UK, Ireland, Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A database of letters, diaries, government papers, pamplets, shipping papers, photographs, hand-drawn maps etc from a range of archival sources.
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The John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemerafully searchable colour images of 65,000 items from the Bodleian Library's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in the 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries
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The Victorian Web"The Victorian Web, in contrast, presents its images and documents, including entire books, as nodes in a network of complex connections. In other words, it emphasizes the link rather than the search tool (though it has one) and presents information linked to other information rather than atomized and isolated" (from: http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/vwintro.html)
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Newspaper GuideUse this guide to find out more about our access to newspaper archives and current titles. Useful for discovering how real world events have been reported.
Subject Guide
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St Andrews
KY16 9TR
Service Desk: +44 (0)1334 46 2331