The Brontes and the Library of Congress Cataloging System
The Library of Congress Classification System (LCC) is a method used to organize materials in libraries by subject, where each subject is assigned a unique alpha-numeric code, allowing for systematic shelving based on topic; it is primarily used by large academic libraries, including here at UCLA, and is considered one of the most widely used library classification systems globally. The system was developed by, and demonstrates a bias toward, understanding and organizing information from the perspective of U.S. and Western European cultures and peoples.
The following are Library of Congress call number ranges related to the Bronte family:
PR 4162-4163 Brontë, Anne (Table P-PZ36)
PR 4165-4169 Brontë, Charlotte (Table P-PZ35)
Including works on the Brontë family
PR 4172-4173 Brontë, Emily (Table P-PZ36)
PR 4174.B2 Brontë, Patrick, 1777-1861 (Table P-PZ40)
PR 4174.B23 Brontë, Patrick Branwell, 1817-1848
- Library of Congress Classification Outline, Class P: Language and LiteratureCurious about where/how the Brontes are classified in relation to other topics/subjects? See page 25 of this PDF. The Brontes fall under "PR3991-5990 19th century, 1770/1800-1890/1900"
- Library of Congress Classification - Schedule PR-PS_PZFor a more detailed break-down of the PR section of the Library of Congress system. You'll find the call number ranges for the Brontes copied above on page 120 of this PDF.
- Brackett, Virginia. Bloom’s How to Write about the Brontës / Virginia Brackett. Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2009.For example, the call number for this book is PR4169.B73 2009. This book is cataloged within in the 'Charlotte Bronte and Bronte family' call number range of PR 4165-4169, with numbers after the decimal, such as .B73, representing subtopics in this range, such as literary criticism or biography, and 2009 is the year of publication. This book provides instructions on how to compose an effective essay and offers paper-topic suggestions. Covers the issues involved in writing about the Brontes and discusses their major works. You can also find links to the subject terms related to Charlotte, Emily, and Anne and criticism of their work linked under Subject in this record.
Check out the "Related Resources" section at the bottom of the page to see other titles that, because LoC is organized by subject, you'll likely find very near this item on a library shelf. - "Aliens" vs. Catalogers: Bias in the Library of Congress Subject Heading Lo, Grace; Philadelphia: RoutledgeFrom the journal Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 2019. An example of the limitations and biases of the Library of Congress cataloging system.
- Browsing through Bias: The Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings for African American Studies and LGBTQIA StudiesJohns Hopkins University Press, 2018. Another example of bias and limitations:
The knowledge organization system prepared by the Library of Congress (LC) and widely used in academic libraries has some disadvantages for researchers in the fields of African American studies and LGBTQIA studies. The interdisciplinary nature of those fields means that browsing in stacks or shelflists organized by LC Classification requires looking in numerous locations. As well, persistent bias in the language used for subject headings, as well as the hierarchy of classification for books in these fields, continues to “other” the peoples and topics that populate these titles. This paper offers tools to help researchers have a holistic view of applicable titles across library shelves and hopes to become part of a larger conversation regarding social responsibility and diversity in the library community
Brontes Biography, Literature, and Criticism
- Paddock, Lisa Olson, and Carl E. (Carl Edmund) Rollyson. The Brontës A to Z : The Essential Reference to Their Lives and Work / Lisa Paddock and Carl Rollyson. Facts On File, 2003Publisher's description: One of English literature's most famous families, the Brontës are known as much for their short lives as for the unforgettable works they produced: Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Anne's Agnes Grey, among others. Now, in one encyclopedic resource, readers can explore the life and work of each writer as an individual and as part of an unusually creative family. The Brontës A to Z is an indispensable, easy-to-use reference to the world of the Brontë family: sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne; their brother, Branwell; and their father, Patrick. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including correspondence, reviews, biographical studies, and the texts themselves, this book covers the Brontës literary influences and achievements, personal history, and critical reception.
- Sheldon, Julie. “‘In Her Own Métier’: The Quarterly Review of Jane Eyre.” Women’s History Review, vol. 18, no. 5, 2009, pp. 835–47.This article discusses Elizabeth Rigby's anonymous Quarterly review of Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë under the male pseudonym of Currer Bell, and examines the critical impact of that encounter between 1848 and 1896.
- Kim, Jin-Ok. Charlotte Brontë and Female Desire / Jin-Ok Kim. Peter Lang, 2003."This book explores many forms of desire, including homoerotic and heterosexual desire, in Charlotte Bronte's works. It focuses on the importance of Bronte's heroines' relationships with substitute mothers and the significance of the emotional bond that these women maintain while engaging in heterosexual relationships. Charlotte Bronte and Female Desire also offers theoretical views of mothers, mothering, and female homoerotic desire through an examination of the works of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and Nancy Chodorow."--Jacket.
- Knight, Charmian, and Patsy Stoneman. The Brontë Influence / Edited by Charmian Knight and Patsy Stoneman. The Brontë Society, 2004.Anthology of essays on the lasting impact of the work of the Brontes in literature and culture.
- Gothic Fiction Research GuideBackground and examples on the subgenre of gothic fiction (includes links to Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights)
British Society and Politics
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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Primary source collections of the 19th century. UCLA access includes: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture; Children's Literature and Childhood; Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, and Conquest; European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection; Mapping the World: Maps and Travel Literature; Photography: The World Through the Lens; Religion, Society, Spirituality, and Reform; Science, Technology, and Medicine: 1780-1925; and Women: Transnational Networks. - Archives of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) This link opens in a new window
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Digitized archives of the Royal Geographical Society from 1478 to 1953, and contains a range of searchable manuscripts, correspondence, reports, conference papers, proceedings, maps, charts, atlases, photographs, surveys, data and ephemera produced by the researchers and members of RGS. Covers the history of geography throughout the British Empire, including environmental history, exploration, colonization and de-colonization, anthropology, law, climate science, gender studies and cartography. - Victorian Popular Culture This link opens in a new window
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Research portal for the study of popular entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Segments include: Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic. - Nineteenth Century Literary Society: The John Murray Publishing Archive This link opens in a new window
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Period covered: 1768-1900. Discover the work of one of the world’s most important publishing dynasties through this collection from the historic John Murray Archive. From book history to travel writing, politics to poetry, this newly digitised resource introduces an unparalleled repository for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.
Women Writers and the Victorian Press
- First-Person Anonymous: Women Writers and Victorian Print Media, 1830-70First-Person Anonymous revises previous histories of Victorian women's writing by examining the importance of both anonymous periodical journalism and signed book authorship in women's literary careers.
- King, Andrew, et al., editors. The Routledge Handbook to Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals and Newspapers / Edited by Andrew King, Alexis Easley, and John Morton. Routledge, 2016The Handbook will serve as a valuable resource for scholars and students of nineteenth-century culture who are interested in issues of cultural formation, transformation, and transmission in a developing industrial and globalizing age, as well as those whose research focuses on the bibliographical and the micro case study. In addition to rendering a comprehensive review and critique of current research on nineteenth-century British periodicals, the Handbook suggests new avenues for research in the twenty-first century.
- Law, Graham. The Periodical Press Revolution: E. S. Dallas and the Nineteenth-Century British Media System. 1st ed., vol. 1, Routledge, 2024This book explores a key aspect of journalism history from a sociological perspective: the rise of the periodical press. With a focus not on the economic and technological causes of this revolution but on the social and political consequences, the book takes a global look at this key development in the British press. Taking as a point of departure the theory of E. S. Dallas, who defined the periodical as 'the great event in modern history', the book explores these premises and conclusions regarding authorship, publishing, and readership, considering the nineteenth century as a whole.
- Rooney, Paul Raphael, and Anna Gasperini, editors. Media and Print Culture Consumption in Nineteenth-Century Britain : The Victorian Reading Experience / Paul Raphael Rooney, Anna Gasperini, Editors. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016This book explores Victorian readers' consumption of a wide array of reading matter. Established scholars and emerging researchers examine nineteenth-century audience encounters with print culture material such as periodicals, books in series, cheap serials, and broadside ballads. (If YRL's copy is currently checked-out, login to Library Account, MFA required, to request via interlibrary loan.)
- Peterson, Linda H. “The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women’s Writing.” Cambridge University Press eBooks, Cambridge University Press, 2015The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Writing brings together chapters by leading scholars to provide innovative and comprehensive coverage of Victorian women writers' careers and literary achievements.
- Women, Periodicals, and Print Culture in Britain, 1830s-1900s: The Victorian PeriodEbook and print available. VPN required.
Governesses and Mad Women in Victorian Culture
- Bayley, Susan N. “The English Miss, German Fräulein and French Mademoiselle: Foreign Governesses and National Stereotyping in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Europe.” History of Education (Tavistock), vol. 43, no. 2, 2014, pp. 160–86In nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe, the age of the governess coincided with the age of nationalism. This paper explores the connection between them in the specific context of intercultural education by foreign governesses. It argues that nationalism, with its focus on the identification and projection of a distinct national character, led to the stereotyping of European countries and, by extension, the stereotyping of foreign governesses.
- Regaignon, Dara Rossman. “INSTRUCTIVE SUFFICIENCY: RE-READING THE GOVERNESS THROUGH AGNES GREY.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 29, no. 1, 2001, pp. 85–108IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND, a governess was the primary educator of male and female children in a middle-class household; particularly by virtue of her work educating girls through their mid-teens, the governess simultaneously effected and disrupted the transparent transmission of class and gender identity between generations of middle-class women.
- Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady : Women, Madness and English Culture 1830-1980 / Elaine Showalter. Virago, 1987.Showalter demonstrates how cultural ideas ab out 'proper' feminine behavior have shaped the definition and treatment of female insanity for 150 years, and given mental disorder in women specifically sexual connotations. Along with vivid portraits of the men who dominated psychiatry, and descriptions of the therapeutic practices that were used to bring women 'to their senses', she draws on diaries and narratives by inmates, and fiction from Mary Wollstonecraft to Doris Lessing to supply a cultural perspective usually missing from studies of mental illness.
- Arieno, Marlene A. (Marlene Ann). Victorian Lunatics : A Social Epidemiology of Mental Illness in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England / Marlene A. Arieno. Susquehanna University Press, 1989."A startling social phenomenon of nineteenth-century England was the continuing rise in the proportion of the population officially recognized as insane and the central government's response to this originally local responsibility. In 1845 legislation mandated public county asylums, and for several decades thereafter public asylums sprang up in every part of the country, becoming overcrowded as rapidly as they were built. Today the most prevalent theory concerning this phenomenon is that of social control, which holds that the "unwanted" in nineteenth-century English society were "dumped" into the newly erected asylums. Implicit in this theory is the suggestion that the government-sponsored asylums were constructed for just such a purpose. In Victorian Lunatics, Marlene A. Arieno subjects the social control theory to the test of statistical analysis and offers an alternative interpretation rooted in the bureaucratic revolution of nineteenth-century England..." -- Dust jacket.
- Balaa, Luma. “The Madness of Women as an Illusional Power in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ and Fadia Faqir’s ‘Pillars of Salt.’” Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 25, no. 7, 2023, pp. 1–20Historically speaking, women have been associated with madness, be it Medea from Ancient Greece, the medieval trials of the witches of Salem, or so called "hysterical" women in the Victorian era. Even in 21 (st) -century literature, arts, and media, the madness of women is widely discussed and often romanticized. Some women authors employed the madwoman trope to show the effects of patriarchal oppression on women. Other studies have associated women's madness in literature with subversion. This paper, however, claims that the portrayal of madness in both Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847) and Fadia Faqir's Pillars of Salt (1996) is not subversive, but rather symbolizes the victimization of women by patriarchy and colonialism.
- Peschier, Diana. Lost Souls : Women, Religion and Mental Illness in the Victorian Asylum / Diana Peschier. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.Contents: Introduction: The Sin of Eve and dangerous emotions -- Wives, mothers and abuse of women in the asylum -- Women with religious excitement -- Evangelical Sunday school teaching: lessons for girls -- Physical illness -- Asylums and madness mirrored in nineteenth-century literature -- Male asylum patients.
- Milne‐Smith, Amy. “Gender and Madness in Nineteenth‐century Britain.” History Compass, vol. 20, no. 11, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12754.For decades, the history of gender and madness was a story about women. Individuals deemed lunatics were universally treated as passive victims of medio‐legal forces beyond their control. New generations of scholars have looked beyond power binaries to interrogate the complex network of gender, class, family, and culture to place ‘the mad’ as historical actors in a complex and often contradictory story.
- History of Medicine Special CollectionsBrowse our guide to learn more about our resources and collections related to the history of medicine.
- Ussher, Jane M. “Labelling Women as Mad: Regulating and Oppressing Women.” The Madness of Women, 1st ed., Routledge, 2011, pp. 64–109Depression may not be an 'illness' superimposed on an alien or indifferent personality structure, but rather may be a distortion - an exaggeration of the normative state of being female in Western society. Login to Library Account and MFA to request via interlibrary loan.