Irish Literature & Cinema

[Copies available in print in the UofT Catalogue.]
Edited by James McGuire and James Quinn.
Cambridge: Royal Irish Academy and Cambridge University Press, 2009. 9 volumes.
With more than 9,000 articles on subjects ranging from politics, law, engineering and religion to literature, painting, medicine and sport, this widely-praised encyclopedia is the place to start for Irish biography. Articles are signed and contain bibliographies. So detailed is the 9-volume set that you get thorough articles on a wide range of people, from internationally-famous figures such as the poet W.B. Yeats to lesser-known persons such as Denis Kilbride, a 19th Century agrarian campaigner and MP.

Gale Group, 2003-.
Similar to Gale’s Literature Resource Centre, and just as good, this database is a great starting place for literary biography. While many of the entries overlap with the Literature Resource Centre, not all of them do, so looking at both resources is worthwhile.

Gale Group, 2003-.
Probably this source is the most detailed—and convenient—biography database available for literature students. You can search by author on the main page or try other searches by clicking “literary-historical timeline” underneath the search box. Choosing the second option should bring up a horizontal menu offering a title search, a keyword search and an “encyclopedia of literature”. The database organizes entries into biography, criticism and “additional resources”. Contemporary Authors covers fiction writers, poets, dramatists, non-fiction writers, journalists, editors, screenwriters, television scriptwriters and other authors.

Edited by Margaret Kelleher and Philip O’Leary.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
[Volume 2 Online]
[Copies Available in Print through the UofT Catalogue]
This 2-volume history of Irish literature provides a chronological survey—in both Irish and English—of the Irish literary tradition spanning fifteen centuries.