Advanced Search

We have two search functions here at The Literature Network. Both functions will only search within one author at a time, to search through all the works of all the authors on this site at once, please see the bottom of this page.

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Phrase Search

Our phrase search scans our database for the exact phrase you enter. If you have the word order, spelling, or punctuation even the slightest bit wrong this search will miss what you are looking for. When searching for an exact quote or passage using this search we recommend you focus on a short key phrase from within the middle of that quote where you are sure of the punctuation. For instance if you were searching for "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." you should just enter "best of times" in this box.

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Boolean Search

Boolean searches are what you commonly encounter on major Internet search engines. These types of searches do not search for the exact phrase you enter unless you encase it in quotes, rather it analyzes the keywords in your search and looks for matches where those words exist in close proximity. Results are then returned in order based on match score. The boolean search is best used if you merely remember a few key words from a quote or passage. Use a + before a word if you require it in every result returned. Use a - infront of a word if you do not want it in any result returned. With a boolean search you should avoid noise words (anything less than 3 characters really). Our boolean search is limited to a maximum of 10 results from longer works such as books or plays, and 10 results from shorter works such as poems or essays, for a maximum of 20 total works returned per search. If you cannot find your result within this 20 item result set, please revise your search terms.

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Entire Site Search

To search our entire site at once please use Google via the form below: