The English and American Literature from Shakespeare to Mark Twain? is the next in a series of literary anthologies that have appeared in the past five years within the series ?Digitale Bibliothek?. In 1997, we developed the concept of a digital library for the electronic anthology ?German Literature from Lessing to Kafka?. Our intention was not to replace printed books nor make them superfluous. Rather we wanted to use the electronic recording and processing of texts to expand the world of books in a new and exciting way. This concept and its rational implementation, which dispenses with multimedia paraphernalia, continues to find recognition. Meanwhile, the first CD-ROM has been followed by more than 70 additional CD-ROMs. Altogether containing approximately 1.4 million pages of text and around 40,000 images, the ?Digitale Bibliothek? has become one of the world's largest text and image databases in the field of the humanities.
This CD-ROM does not merely continue our program in a simple, linear fashion, but marks a branching out in two respects: first, it is the Digitale Bibliothek's first foreign language edition; and second, the software has been expanded with several new features.
The anthology presents, on more than 172,000 pages, the literary work of 95 authors from English and American literature spanning the late 14th century to the second decade of the 20th century. Among the texts are the most significant dramas, novels, and short stories that have become classics in English and American literature, the work of the most well-known lyricists, and a selection of essays and autobiographical writings. The basis for these electronic texts - wherever availability and copyright laws permit - are modern, scholarly book editions. Illustrated biographies of the authors, and bibliographic notes on each work complete the edition.
