General
Citing Sources
A link to MLA style sheet and MIT style manual.
Searchable Bible
Use the King James Version for both Melville and Morrison.
Making of America
Nineteenth-century American books and periodicals.
Perspectives on American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide
MIT Libraries American Literature Course Page
A source for online materials and advice about research.
Africana
Gateway to the Black World.
African American Odyssey/Library of Congress
Herman Melville
Digital Moby-Dick
Online text, useful for searches. Not always accurate, though.
The Town-Ho’s Story
Original publication in Harper’s Magazine.
Making of America
Find first printings of Melville’s stories.
Selected Bibliography on Moby-Dick
From the Gonzaga American Authors site.
“Amistad” case
Mystic Seaport site on one possible source for “Benito Cereno”.
University of Massachusetts Site on Lowell Mill Girls
Historical analogue to Melville’s paper mill in “Tartarus of Maids”.
Information on Cinque, leader of the Amistad revolt
Text of “Benito Cereno” with maps and other information
University of Virginia - Confidence-Man site
Text and notes; some images.
Toni Morrison
Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon”
Paradise
Timeline, genealogy, discussion questions.
Missing Peace in Toni Morrison’s Sula and Beloved" by Rachel Lee
On an “aesthetic of ambiguity.”
History, Gender, and The South in Jazz