Research Guide: Literary Criticism

This guide will help you understand and locate literary criticism

Google Books - Previews

Find Previews of Books Through Google Books

Many of the books on the Google Books website allow you to view a preview. You can limit to these books using the instructions below. You may not see entire text of the book, but many of the chapters may be included. You can often find great information in these chapters.

  1. Search Google Books to find full text or partial text of books online
  2. Choose books from your search that indicate there is a "Preview" 
  3. Or limit to "Preview Available" under "Any books" on the tools menu (see image below)

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image of the results of a Google Books search, highlighting the tools to limit to "preview available" only books

Holman Library Primo One Search

Holman Library logo

Search for print books, ebooks, and videos available at the library and online.

Use filters on the left to limit by specific source type, date range, and more.

Finding Books in the Holman Library

Searching for books containing literary criticism

  1. To find criticism of authors and their works, search using the author's name and the word criticism.
    • You may also select Advanced Search and try adding the subject term "literary criticism"

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A screenshot of a search for Alice Walker criticism in the Library's Primo One Search tool.

  1. To find criticism of specific works, search using the title 
  • Sometimes criticism is found in the "introduction" sections of books

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catalog record- their eyes were watching god - with a foreword and afterword

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Interlibrary Loans

Get books from other libraries for free

Making a request

  1. Click on the one of the links above. Enter search words to find books.
  2. Note down the author, title, publisher, publication date and ISBN number of the book
  3. Make an Interlibrary Loan Request using the following link so that the book can be sent to Green River's Holman Library for you to borrow:

NOTE: this process may take one week

  1. To see an example of how to make a request, click below:

Literature Criticism

Subject searching

Use the links below to find books and videos in the Library on these subjects:

Criticism for poetry
Criticism for drama 
Criticism for short stories