Collins Memorial Library: ENGL 330/431: Rise of the Novel: Primary Sources : Time & Place

Creating Historical Context

Each novel explored in this course takes place at a particular place and time, and reflects the author’s cultural
and historical context.

For your "Time and Place" assignment, you are asked to focus on either the cultural-historical background specifically represented in the text or the cultural-historical background of its author around the time of composition. Options include:

The Coquette, Hannah Webster Foster, 1797

Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1852

Turn of the Screw, Henry James, 1898

Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin, 1956

You are also asked to locate and make explicit use of a source outside the text -- something that will allow you to frame what is happening in the novel by looking outside of its borders. This may be a scholarly, secondary source, such as an article, or a primary source, such as a contemporary newspaper article, advertisement, letter, or other document.

The resources on this page will help you explore primary source material. See the Articles tab for help with secondary sources.

Imagine Your Perfect Source

Many expert searchers describe “imagining their perfect source” as a key step prior to searching.

Here are some key tips for envisioning and then beginning to search for your ideal source. These strategies can be adapted for both database and open web searching.

Predict what you expect to find when you run a search. Ask yourself:

When I run this search, what do I expect to appear?
When I click this link, what do I expect I will see?
When I find this answer, what do I expect it to look like?

Consider adding context terms to your search -- these are words in your query that are not part of the topic, but instead clarify the kind of result you want. It describes the kind of source you are looking for, and would actually appear in the title, tags, or text that is on the page. For example, "c oquette sketch 18th century".

Remember that, even for expert researchers, your initial searches may not be successful! Use your first few searches as stepping stones, to teach yourself better word choices, new terms for your topic, etc.

Content adapted from Bergson-Michelson, Tasha. “‘Imagine Your Perfect Source’: Strategies for Cultivating Expert Researchers.” edWeb.net, August 17, 2017. https://home.edweb.net/webinar/imagine-perfect-source-cultivating-expert-researchers/.

Featured Resources

19th Century British Pamphlets
Throughout the 19th century, pamphlets were an important means of public debate, covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of their day. 19th Century British Pamphlets, created by Research Libraries UK (RLUK), contains the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in research libraries in the United Kingdom.
AAS Historical Periodicals
Search the complete collection of American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Parts I-VII.
American Decades Primary Sources (1900-1999)
Includes full or excerpted primary sources representing the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from each decade.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender
Primary source material that explores the many facets of LGBTQ history. Users will find page images of a mixture of activist groups’ organizational papers, flyers and pamphlets, NGO and Governmental reports, periodicals, newsletters, personal papers, legal documents and more.
Artstor on JSTOR
A digital library of images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences, with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images.
Artstor is now available in its new home on JSTOR! When you search JSTOR, you will find Artstor’s 2+ million licensed images and more than 1,700 additional primary source collections alongside JSTOR’s vast collection of books, journal articles, and research reports.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
From the Library of Congress a searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages.
Digital Collections: Library of Congress
Primary source materials including multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library of Congress.
London Times Digital Archive
Since its first publication in 1785, The Times (London) has become one of the most preeminent, global daily (except Sundays) newspapers of the 18th century through the early 21st century, covering international events, people, places, politics, business news, opinion and debate, entertainment, and advertising.