About the Bibliography
Look Up a Writer
Search by Word or Phrase
Results

About the Bibliography

The Bibliography of American Literature (BAL) is a comprehensive bibliographic guide, describing nearly 40,000 literary works of approximately 300 American writers from the American Revolution to 1930.

The Bibliography of American Literature is renowned for the accuracy and extent of its publication details, which list every reprint and variant edition of an author's works, including obscure and fugitive appearances in anthologies, broadsides, and gift books. It also includes details on bindings and physical features of the editions.

BAL originally appeared in print in nine volumes, published for the Bibliographical Society of America by Yale University Press between 1955 and 1991. Jacob Blanck was the project's originator and primary architect.

All nine volumes of BAL are fully searchable together. BAL divides each author's list of works into sections, including Principal Works, Reprints, and References. For each primary book listed, a title-page transcription is provided, together with details of the pagination, collation, binding (including cloth grain), and publication history. The location of at least one copy is given, as well as a selected list of bibliographical and biographical works.

This electronic version was produced by Chadwyck-Healey, a division of ProQuest Information and Learning.

Look Up a Writer

To find the bibliography for a particular writer, go to the Table of Contents and choose the writer (alphabetically by last name).

Or, search by a word or phrase in the writer's name:

Search:	Finds:
Search in: Name of Writer Find: alcott	Entries for writers whose names include Alcott. Click Results Details to see the matches, then select the writer you want.

Search by Word or Phrase

You can search the entire Bibliography by word or phrase.

• Use the pull-down menu to specify where to search; then enter a single word or phrase in the box.

  Full Text: searches words anywhere within the full content of the Bibliography

  Name of Writer: any word in the name of the writer covered, e.g., Harriet Beecher Stowe; also includes pseudonyms or other names the writer used, e.g., Travelling Bachelor

• Two or more words together are automatically searched as a phrase of adjacent words (no need to use quotation marks).

  society of friends finds the exact phrase Society of Friends

• Every word is searched, including and, or, not.

  chimes of freedom and union finds the exact phrase Chimes of Freedom and Union

• Use asterisk at end of word stem to find plural forms and other variations.

  emancipat* finds emancipate, emancipation, emancipator, etc.

Basic Search: to look for a single word or phrase.

Search:	Finds:
Search in: Full Text Find: poetry of freedom	the exact phrase poetry of freedom anywhere in the Bibliography
Search in: Full Text Find: poetry freedom	nothing, because the exact phrase poetry freedom does not exist in the Bibliography
Search in: Full Text Find: ticknor and fields	the exact phrase Ticknor and Fields anywhere in the Bibliography
Search in: Name of Writer Find: brown*	bibliographies for writers named Brown, Browne, Brownell

Boolean Search: to combine two or three words or phrases using Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT.

Search:	Finds:
Search in: Name of Writer Find: smith and francis	writers whose names include both Smith and Francis
Search in: Full Text Find: indian princess or belle sauvage	either phrase indian princess or belle sauvage anywhere in the Bibliography

Proximity Search: to look for terms based on whether they occur (or do not occur) within a specified distance of each other.

Search:	Finds:
Search in: Full Text Find: spirit near symphony <40	spirit near symphony, within 40 characters of each other, in either order
Search in: Full Text Find: lyrics followed by hearth* <80	lyrics followed within 80 characters by hearth (or hearths, hearthside, etc.)
Search in: Full Text Find: remus near legends <80 near plantation <120	(Remus within 80 characters of legends), and that result within 120 characters of plantation

Book Search is a feature of the software but is not useful for this database, since the entire database consists of just one book.

Search History: View your previous searches during this session. From this page, you can resubmit a search to get its results again.

Search Results

Results Details: Shows each occurrence of the matching term found within the Bibliography, highlighted within an excerpt of surrounding text. Main Entries are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the writer's primary name.

Table of Contents: Shows the table of contents for the entire Bibliography. Entries are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the writer's primary name. These entries also display pseudonyms and additional names the writer used, e.g., An American Lady.

The Table of Contents displays the option to View Entire Text, which allows you to view the entire Bibliography as one file in your browser.

December 2006