Detail from picture of a woman reading a Gothic novel, artist unknown. Source: http://agothicquest.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/scared-vintagegraphicsfairy.jpg
The Gumberg Library provides access to two suites of electronic reference works geared to literature. Using both will provide your with a great amount of introductory information on your chosen literary topic.
Both of these collections of resources can be accessed off-campus, but you will have to enter your Multipass username and password word in order to use them.
Gale Literature Resource Center
This database provides information on thousands of authors and literary works. It includes biographies, reviews and news, literary criticism, and topic and work overviews.
Along with the full text of of 350,000 English and American works of literature, this database provides articles from 200 full-text literary journals and other key critical and reference resources.
For literature scholars who need an exhaustive set of scholarly resources around a literary topic for research and course planning. 500,000 primary works and millions of records from journals, monographs, and dissertations.
The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 7th edition, says this about "Gothic Fiction": "‘Gothic’ is a distinct modern development in which the characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present, or the encroachment of the ‘dark’ ages of oppression upon the ‘enlightened’ modern era. In Gothic romances and tales this theme is embodied typically in enclosed and haunted settings such as castles, crypts, convents, or gloomy mansions, in images of ruin and decay, and in episodes of imprisonment, cruelty, and persecution."
This guide will point the student researcher to many types of resources dealing with this form of literature.
Use the tabs running across the top of the screen to access the different types of resources.
To read these articles you will need to enter your Multipass username and password when prompted
E-Reference Works
Click a title to read the book
The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740-1830 by 
The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period by 
