Books & eBooks

The Library’s collection includes both academic eBooks and other fiction and non-fiction eBooks available through the Libby platform. All academic eBooks will appear in your search results in the Library Catalogue. Those available through Libby are also in our Catalogue but can also be searched separately through the Libby platform, which you also need in order to access these titles.

The Library’s main collection of books of and about mythology and folklore is in the Science and Miscellaneous collection, under the classmark S. Folklore &c (Back Stacks Level 4 Front). As in the rest of the Library, within this classmark most books are shelved under the author’s surname, with edited works shelved under the title (ignoring The and A). Collections of folktales passed down the generations through oral tradition are contained in this classmark, as well as studies of mythology and folklore (including Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale) and books on the Arthurian legends, folk-music, fairy tales, myths and superstitions. Works by and about the Brothers Grimm can be found at S. Folklore &c., Grimm.

Multiple languages are represented in S. Folklore, in particular English, German, French, Russian, Danish and Italian, and there is even a translation from Middle English into Modern English (On the properties of things : John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum : a critical text).

Some other classmarks are also related to folklore and mythology. In particular, the Literature collections (Central Stacks and St James’s Building, Floors 2 to 4) will contain mythological writings such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Poetic and Prose Eddas. Also, works about literature and folklore tend to find a home in the Literature collections. The Literature collections are organised by language.

There are other relevant classmarks. For example, the Children’s Books collection includes mythological and folkloric tales as retold for children, like Andrew Lang & Leonora Blanche Alleyne’s “Coloured” Fairy Books. Bibliog. Folklore (Central Stacks Floor 5) is in the Bibliography collection, so these books contain lists of books on particular topics within the subject of folklore, for example Fictitious beasts, a bibliography and The Arthurian legend : a check list of books in the Newberry Library. RR Dict.s Folklore is one of the Reading Room Subject Dictionaries classmarks, located in the South Gallery of the main Reading Room. Books in this classmark are for reference use only.

Folklore and mythology also serve as inspiration for new writing, resulting in books like Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Madeline Miller’s Circe, and works of this nature can be found in the Fiction (Central Stacks Floor 2), Children’s Books and Literature collections. Works of art in multiple media depict mythological scenes, and books about them can be found in the Art collections (The Art Room and Mezzanine floor, T S Eliot House), which are organised by medium, for example A. Painting and A. Sculpture.

Other classmarks which may include books related to folklore and mythology include:

S. Animal Lore
S. Flower Lore
S. Zoology
S. Witchcraft
S. Occult Science
S. Devil &c.
S. Superstitions

Books on folklore and mythology might also be found in the Special Collections, which are kept behind locked doors. The Stoker Collection, for example, contains 26 original volumes which Bram Stoker almost certainly used when researching his classic novel Dracula, including the Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould and The Devil: His Origin, Greatness and Decadence by Albert Reville.

The Library holds several periodicals about mythology and folklore, for example the journal Folklore, a peer-reviewed international journal of folklore and folkloristics published by the Folklore Society. This journal has had three different titles since its inception in 1878: The Folk-Lore Record until 1882, The Folk-Lore Journal from 1883 to 1889 and in 1890 it merged with The Archaeological Review and adopted its current title Folklore. The Library holds the physical volumes from 1878 up until 2015, and also has online access to the journal archive from 1878, with a moving wall of five years.

Fantasy

The Library holds several precursors to the fantasy genre, such as a first edition of Sara Coleridge’s Phantasmion (1837) (please speak to a member of staff at the Issue Desk about arranging an invigilation to view this book; alternatively an 1874 edition is available in Fiction), as well as The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (several editions in Fiction) and Undine by Friedrich Heinrich Karl la Motte-Fouqué (for example in the original German in L. German Fiction and in English translation in the Fiction collections).

The Library holds important early works of fantasy, for example George MacDonald’s Phantastes (2 copies in Fiction, and a first edition in the safes) and The Earthly Paradise by William Morris. Works by Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison and Mervyn Peake are also available, as well as Hope Mirrlees’ fantasy work Lud-in-the-Mist. Biographies of many early fantasy writers can be found in the Biography collections, under the subject’s surname. Criticism of many of these authors’ work is available in the Literature collections and in our ejournal collections.

The Library holds first editions of the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien (in Fiction and in the safes), as well as copies of The Hobbit (Children’s Books). Tolkien’s posthumously published Middle Earth writings are held, including The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin and The History of Middle Earth (all in Fiction). Several biographies and two editions of his letters are available in Biog. Tolkien on the third floor of the Central Stacks, and critical writings can be found on the second floor of the St James’s Building in L. Eng Lit, Tolkien. Tolkien’s essay on his philosophy of fantasy ‘On Fairy Stories’ can be found in Poems and Stories, The Monsters and the Critics (both in L. English Lit., shelved under Tolkien) and Essays Presented to Charles Williams (L. English Lit., shelved under the title).

Much of the fantasy the Library holds from the period following the publication of The Lord of the Rings up to the present day is held in the Children’s Books collection, for example the six books of Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea series as well as His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. However, some fantasy for adults, including Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is also held.

Criticism and history of the fantasy genre in general will mostly be in L. Literature, Hist. of (Gen.), but, depending on the exact subject of the book, could also be found elsewhere, for example L. Children's Books, Hist of, or S. Folklore. Historical or critical works about works of fantasy in a particular language will be found in Literature in the classmark for the original language of the work.