Guides and databases: Comparative Literature: Books and E-books

Books and e-books

The Literature collection is on the first floor of the Main Library in the Wilkins building, this contains literary topics not specific to a national literature, such as literary theory and comparative literature. It also includes some literary works translated into English from other languages.

The collections for English Language and Literature and Modern Languages: Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romance, German, Germanic and Scandinavian languages (including Faroese), are all also located in the Main Library.

UCL Explore is the main tool to find books, journals and other materials (either in print or online) held in UCL libraries. On the catalogue, you will find the location details of the materials you are looking for: Library, Collection and Shelfmark.

The books are arranged according to the Garside Classification system.

For further help with finding, using and citing e-books, take a look at our Electronic books (e-books) Guide.

Other collections

Art includes Film Studies.
History: for individual European countries' political, social and economic history and the Latin American History collection for extensive coverage of Latin American social, political and economic history.
Philosophy
Translation Studies: for materials on translation theory, literary translation and specialised translation.

Anthropology: materials relating to Spanish and Latin American cultural studies.
Geography includes a good collection on French social history.

The Language & Speech Science (LASS) Library holds books and periodicals on the theory and practice of language study.

School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) library: includes major holdings of the history and literature of East Germany and other German-speaking areas, Finland and the Baltic region.

Stores service

Stores service
The UCL Library off-site store is a closed access collection which houses important research material not currently in high demand. Users can request store material for delivery to a number of UCL's libraries.

Key online dictionaries and encyclopedias in Comparative Literature

The Library provides access to many important reference works online:

Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
Encyclopaedia covering all aspects of linguistics. Around 3000 articles, and 1500 figures, plus supplementary audio and video files.
Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography
Online version of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, providing biographical and critical essays on the lives, works and careers of the world's most influential literary figures.
Literary Encyclopedia
Encyclopaedia of topics in global literature, written by practising academics. Includes profiles of authors, works and literary and historical topics.
Oxford Language Dictionaries
Full bi-lingual dictionaries, between English and French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese. Accessibility statement for Oxford language dictionaries online.

UCL Press

UCL Press is a leading open access scholarly publisher, publishing mainly scholarly monographs, edited collections, textbooks and journals.

Everything they publish is available to download freely in PDF form or to read online anywhere in the world, without the need to log in.

Follow the link below to browse what they have published on the subject of Literary Studies.

UCL Press Literary Studies

Finding e-books in Explore

A brief guide to finding and accessing e-books via UCL Explore.

Search Explore

Check out our Explore guide to find out more about how to use Explore for your research.

Explore guide

ReadingLists@UCL

ReadingLists @UCL is an online service that gives students easy access to materials on their reading lists wherever they are, and allows academic staff to create and update their own reading lists.

ReadingLists@UCL webpages

Suggest a purchase

Suggest a purchase
Is there a book or resource you would like to see in our collection? Perhaps you've noticed something missing on your reading list? Please let us know by filling out our suggest a purchase form.