A great starting point for students or casual readers looking for a introduction to the themes and discussions on Tennessee William's play, A Streetcare Named Desire. This overview also includes Elia Kazan's 1951 film version of the play.

A great starting point for students or casual readers looking for a introduction to the themes and discussions on Authur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman.

Masterplots analyzes the most important works in all genres—long fiction, short fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction—throughout history and around the world, helping to define and critique the literary canon. Masterplots, Fourth Edition, in twelve volumes, retains the original purpose of the Masterplotsconcept: providing fundamental reference data, plot synopses where applicable, and critical evaluations of a comprehensive selection of English-language and world literature that has been translated into English. The essays are in alphabetical order by title, and each includes an annotated bibliography to aid readers in further study.

Downton Abbey isn't the only recent British TV drama to become a hit with PBS viewers.  Call the Midwife made its debut last year here in the U.S. and developed a large following.  The second season is set to begin airing on PBS on Sunday 31 March at 8:00PM.  The world of Call the Midwife is a far cry from the aristocratic society depicted in Downton Abbey.  The drama, set in the gritty East End of London in the 1950s, centers on Jenny Lee, a young nurse who takes a job at Nonnatus House, a convent that serves as a maternity hospital for the impoverished East Enders.  Jenny deals with the culture shock of her new environment as she befriends the eccentric sisters of the convent and her fellow nurses.  The poverty of the district is depicted unflinchingly, but the sisters and nurses care for their troubled patients with a compassion that makes for great drama.  The Richland Library has season one of Call the Midwife on DVD, as well as the memoir by Jennifer Worth on which the series is based.

A collection of over 100 programs dating from 1921 to 1999 from productions at the historic Town Theatre in downtown Columbia; which occupies the oldest community theatre building in continuous use in the United States. Full programs can be viewed online, hosted by South Carolina Digital Library.

The For Students series is an excellent resource for high school and college students, offering rich analysis, context and criticism on the most frequently studied works. The collection includes Novels for Students, Poetry for Students, Short Stories for Students, and Drama for Students as well as new products, Literary Newsmakers for Students, Literary Themes for Students and Shakespeare for Students, 2nd Edition.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Poetry Criticism and Shakespearean Criticism have been brought together online under a single searchable interface from Gale publishing.

Salem Literature launches with our brand-new Critical Insights series. This comprehensive series distills the best of both classic and current literary criticism of the world’s most-studied literature. Each volume in the series focuses on an individual author’s entire body of work or on a single work of literature. Edited and written by some of academe's most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights provides authoritative, indepth scholarship suitable for students and teachers alike.