This page brings together free online books, topic searches, and open access resources related to literary criticism and reading guides, including studies of novels and authors, interpretive essays, literary analysis, and commentary on classic works. The materials range from older public domain works to modern research.
The Topics section below helps readers find books within the huge Internet Archive collection. Each topic link generates an Internet Archive search focused on that subject. Browsing the topics and selecting those of interest is usually easier and more effective than searching Internet Archive directly.
The section below Topics provides links to related modern Open Access books. See that section for more information.
Topics – Types of Literary Criticism
The topic links below lead to Internet Archive search results related to literary criticism. Each link opens a books-and-documents search focused on a particular topic.
Search results generally include fully readable books. For some subjects, Internet Archive also contains other media, such as images, audio, or video files. These can be selected from the media options above the search results. Filters on the left side of Internet Archive pages can help narrow search results by year, language, or related subjects.
Regional and National Literature Study
Subjects & Themes – Types of Literary Criticism Books
Time Periods of Literary Criticism
Literature Genres – Literary Criticism
Approaches to Criticism
Open Access Literary Criticism Types – Literature Study
The Open Access books and other materials below are modern works made freely available online by universities, academic publishers, the Library of Congress, and other organizations. Many reflect current scholarship and research.
Some works may only be read online, but many can also be downloaded as PDF or EPUB files.
- Literary Criticism Textbooks, Courses, Activities etc. at OER Commons
- Types of Literary Criticism Tutorials, Textbooks, Courses, Collections etc. at MERLOT
- Literary Studies Books at Doab
- Literary Theory Books at Doab
- Books on Literary Studies: Ancient, Classical and Medieval at OAPEN
- Books on Literary Studies: c 1600 to c 1800 at OAPEN
Related Pages on Century Past
See our Century Past directories for hundreds of webpages of Books; Magazines; Articles, maps, & photos; and Newspapers. You’ll find the same directories on the top Menu. Here are a few suggested pages: