English literature set texts arrive with instructions about editions, and they matter. Liverpool's first-year Literature in Time module for 2026/27 names David Scott Kastan's Norton Doctor Faustus, warns that the play survives in "A" and "B" texts, and asks for the A. Warwick's 2026/27 medieval list allows a modern translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight alongside, but seminars quote the Middle English.
EdCitation publishes this guide, built from reading lists at Warwick, Liverpool and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), a Southern Utah University syllabus and the MLA Style Center, all read on 23 September 2026. Below: editions, citing in MLA 9 with Cite a source, finding criticism with Find sources, checking with Verify references, and gathering the books in EdCitation's Library.
What books does an English literature degree read?
An English literature degree reads four kinds of book: set texts (the primary works), anthologies, criticism and theory. Two first-year Warwick lists for 2026/27 name all four.
| Kind | Used for | Examples from the lists | In MLA 9, cited as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set text | The work you write about | Doctor Faustus, ed. Kastan (Liverpool); Twelfth Night, Arden, ed. Keir Elam (QMUL); The Road (Southern Utah) | A book, with its editor |
| Anthology | Many authors in one edited volume | The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 11th ed., vol. B (Warwick) | The poem, then the anthology as container |
| Criticism | Arguments about the texts | Companions, handbooks, monographs, PMLA articles (Warwick) | A book, a chapter or an article |
| Theory | Ways of reading | Butler and Cixous essays (Warwick); Culler and Barry (QMUL) | A book, a chapter or an article |
| All four together | Getting and keeping them | EdCitation's Library; articles in Find sources | Referenced with Cite a source |
Warwick: a list for every week
The University of Warwick (2026a) gives each week of Medieval and Early Modern Literature its reading: tales from the Norton Chaucer, then Wyatt, More, Sidney, Mary Wroth and Spenser from volume B of the Norton Anthology, with The Spanish Tragedy and the Arden Richard III as library ebooks. Under each text sits criticism: companions, handbooks, monographs such as Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-Fashioning, chapters and articles, from which students pick one or two.
Its first-year Modes of Reading module works mostly from essays: Freud, Althusser, Hélène Cixous's "The Laugh of the Medusa" from Signs, and Judith Butler's "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" from Theatre Journal (University of Warwick, 2026b).
Liverpool, QMUL and Southern Utah
Liverpool gives recommended print editions with links to reliable online texts, among them John Bugg's 2020 Oxford Wuthering Heights (University of Liverpool Department of English, n.d.). QMUL's Shakespeare module asks for the Arden third series for its extensive introductions and notes, naming each editor (Queen Mary University of London, 2025). Southern Utah's Literature and Culture course lists its eight books by ISBN, The Road among them (Southern Utah University, 2026).
Why does the edition of a set text matter?
The edition matters because your quotations, and the numbers you cite them by, come from it. Editions differ in the words they print, the notes and introduction around them, and whether they number the lines.
The words themselves can differ
Doctor Faustus exists as a 1604 A-text and a 1616 B-text, and Kastan's edition prints both, which is why Liverpool names the version as well as the book. Oxford's Wuthering Heights uses the 1976 Clarendon text with the punctuation of the 1847 text restored, and Bugg's edition revised that text and its annotations (Oxford University Press, n.d.). A medieval poem adds a language: Warwick offers Andrew and Waldron's modern English Gawain as a help, and teaches from the original.
Notes, introductions and line numbers
QMUL chose Arden for its introductions and notes, and the Modern Language Association (2019) treats a Norton Critical Edition as a version worth naming in the entry. Line numbers are the other difference. The University of Saskatchewan's English department, whose 2025-26 essay handbook follows MLA 9, says to cite a poem by the line numbers the edition prints, and not to count lines yourself when it prints none (University of Saskatchewan Department of English, 2025).
How do I find the edition my reading list names?
Search by the ISBN when the list gives one, check the editor and series against the publisher's page, and ask before buying anything else.
- Write down the list's whole entry: author, title, editor, series, year, ISBN.
- Give the ISBN to EdCitation's Cite a source, at no charge and without an account, to see which book the number belongs to.
- Compare that record with the publisher's page: editor, edition, volume, year.
- Search the title in the Library, where editions sit side by side.
- If the list offers alternatives, as Warwick's does for Chaucer ("other acceptable editions"), take one it names.
- Your reference names the copy you read, so take its details from that copy's title page.
What two ISBNs turned up
Warwick's Chaucer ISBN, 9780393643503, returned this in MLA 9:
Lawton, David. Canterbury Tales. W. W. Norton, 2019.
The publisher is right, business words such as Company already dropped as the Modern Language Association (2018b) asks, but the record makes the editor the author and leaves Chaucer out. Norton's page calls the book The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, edited by David Lawton (W. W. Norton & Company, n.d.-b):
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. Edited by David Lawton, W. W. Norton, 2019.
Volume B's ISBN, 9781324062639, gave the editors as authors, no edition or volume, and 2023; Norton lists the volume for sale from 1 July 2024 (W. W. Norton & Company, n.d.-a), Warwick's year. Go by the copyright page.
When the list says any edition
QMUL's London Global module sets Great Expectations and Mrs Dalloway in "any editions" and expects students to own a copy. Cite the copy on your desk.
How do I cite set texts, anthologies and criticism in MLA 9?
Cite each source by the MLA's core elements in order: author, title, then the container with its contributors, version, number, publisher, date and location, as Saskatchewan's handbook lists them. Warwick's English department requires MLA 9 of most students and accepts MHRA, which many joint-degree students use elsewhere (University of Warwick Library, 2025). EdCitation does not produce MHRA. For MLA 9, its Cite a source is the right tool because it takes every entry from the publisher's record rather than writing one: every fault below is the record's, visible and fixable, and nothing is invented. Rules were checked at style.mla.org; several answers there were written for the eighth edition.
A novel or a play in a scholarly edition
By ISBN, Bugg's Wuthering Heights came back as Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Oxford UP, 2020, with no editor. By the edition's DOI, 10.1093/owc/9780198834786.001.0001, Cite a source returned:
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Edited by John Bugg, 2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/owc/9780198834786.001.0001.
The press is already written as the Modern Language Association (2018a) asks, Oxford UP. One change by hand: a DOI is the location of a work read online (Modern Language Association, 2016), so from the paperback, stop at the year. For Kastan's Doctor Faustus, the ISBN gave the two-text title, 2004 and no editor: add "Edited by David Scott Kastan, Norton Critical Edition", and take the year from the title page, since Liverpool gives 2005.
A poem in an anthology
The poem is the source and the anthology its container. The Modern Language Association (2025) cites Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 from the Norton Anthology with the general editor after the title, then edition, volume, publisher, year and page. Norton's contents page puts Wyatt's "They Flee from Me" on page 127 of volume B:
Wyatt, Thomas. "They Flee from Me." The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Stephen Greenblatt, general editor, 11th ed., vol. B, W. W. Norton, 2024, p. 127.
In your sentences, cite the poem's lines if the edition numbers them, with "lines" in the first citation.
An editor's introduction
Quote an editor's introduction and it needs its own entry, under the editor, with Introduction in place of a title and the page range. Saskatchewan's handbook gives:
Drabble, Margaret. Introduction. Middlemarch, by George Eliot, Bantam Books, 1985, pp. vii-xvii.
Bugg's introduction goes under Bugg the same way, followed by the novel, its editor, Oxford UP, 2020, and the pages from your copy's contents list.
A chapter in an edited collection
Warwick sends readers of The Spanish Tragedy to Preedy (2018), pages 181 to 200 of an Edinburgh collection. Its DOI returned:
Preedy, Chloe Kathleen. "'Women's Weapons': Education and Female Revenge on the Early Modern Stage." Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Literature, edited by Lesel Dawson and Fiona McHardy, Edinburgh UP, 2018, pp. 181–200, https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474414098.003.0010.
That entry stands. The chapter's own record names no editors, so Cite a source took them from the collection's record and set them after its title, as in the MLA's Poe example (Modern Language Association, n.d.).
A journal article
Carruthers (1979), on Warwick's Chaucer list, came back from its DOI complete:
Carruthers, Mary. "The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 94, no. 2, Mar. 1979, pp. 209–22, https://doi.org/10.2307/461886.
One change: the journal is PMLA, as the Modern Language Association (2021) writes it in its own examples. More cases are in the MLA 9 Works Cited guide.
How do I find literary criticism for an essay?
Start from your module's further reading, then search. EdCitation's Find sources searches about 300 million published works, with filters for source type, years, field and more. Two runs on 23 September 2026:
- "Wife of Bath", Source type Article: 27,362 works. Carruthers's article came third; second was a 2015 paper on water use in Mozambique. Field, set to Arts and Humanities, is the filter for that, but the full index was busy and the tool said above the results that Field was not applied.
- "Spanish Tragedy Kyd", Source type Book chapter: 53,576. The first eight included Ralf Haekel's chapter in De Gruyter's Handbook of English Renaissance Literature and four chapters of Doing Kyd, both on Warwick's list.
Using critics is covered in how to write a literary analysis essay.
How do I check the finished Works Cited list?
Paste it into EdCitation's Verify references; no account is needed. Each entry comes back verified, "Check this" or not found, with the record it matched, and retracted papers are flagged. The corrected entries above came back five verified and one "Check this".
| Entry | Verdict | Matched to |
|---|---|---|
| Wuthering Heights, ed. Bugg | Verified | The Oxford edition's record |
| Carruthers, PMLA | Verified | Its DOI's record, title matching |
| Doctor Faustus, ed. Kastan, 2005 | Verified | A library catalogue record |
| The Norton Chaucer | Verified | A library catalogue record, filed under its editor, Lawton |
| Preedy's chapter | Verified | Its DOI's record, title matching |
| Wyatt in the Norton Anthology | Check this: "A work with this title is recorded in The Long Public Life of a Short Private Poem (2020), not in the source your entry names." | A 2020 book chapter about the poem |
Read the match as well as the verdict. A poem in an anthology has no record of its own, so Verify references names where it found the title instead, and Wyatt is checked against the book in your hands. Books are checked against a library catalogue; when it is slow the verdict is "Could not check", never "Not found": run that entry again a minute later. None of the six needed it.
Where can I find English literature books in one place?
EdCitation's Library is where an English degree's books come together best. Tracking this guide's editions meant four universities' pages and three publishers' sites; the Library holds set texts, criticism and theory in a single catalogue, searchable by title, author, subject or ISBN and filtered by discipline, kind, language and year.
What the searches found
Literature and languages, one of 31 disciplines, held 180,432 books on 23 September 2026, language-learning guides among them, so add words. "Literary theory" within it returned 1,640, led by Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory and Jonathan Culler's short introduction, which QMUL's page spells "Cullers": copy names from the book.
Set texts show why the ISBN matters. "Wuthering Heights" returned 638 records; newest first, the top five held a 2026 "creative companion", a lined journal and a 2025 record crediting the novel to Charlotte Brontë. Bugg's ISBN went straight to the novel, the card carrying that ISBN but the work's first year, 1846, so the publisher's page is the check for the edition. The Norton Chaucer's ISBN found the book itself, marked as one to buy; volume B's found the anthology under its own ISBN, dated 2023, so check the volume letter and year against Norton's page.
Cards list the cover, authors, publisher and year. Those marked to buy link to a shop page and to libraries near you that hold them, and any can be kept in My Books or cited in a click. Max adds more than 5 million books to read or borrow, a collection EdCitation compiled so that set texts, criticism and theory sit in one place.
What costs what
Everything short of reading is free with an EdCitation account: the catalogue, My Books, the shop pages and the library finder. Reading and borrowing, and Theoretics QA, belong to Max, which costs $24 a month or $216 paid yearly. Searching, citing and verifying work without signing in; Pricing compares the plans. Companion guides cover law and psychology.
Quick questions
Which edition of a set text should I buy?
The one your module names, down to the editor and series. Liverpool names Kastan's Norton Doctor Faustus and asks for the A-text. When a list says any edition, as QMUL's does for Mrs Dalloway, read any and cite the one you used.
How do I cite a poem from the Norton Anthology in MLA 9?
Poet, poem title in quotation marks, the anthology in italics, the general editor, edition, volume, W. W. Norton, year and page. Give the anthology's ISBN to EdCitation's Cite a source, then add the poem and fix what the record gets wrong.
Does EdCitation do MHRA?
No. Its six styles are MLA 9, APA 7, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, so write an MHRA essay from the MHRA's own guide. Warwick's English department asks most students for MLA 9.
Where can I find English literature books in one place?
EdCitation's Library keeps set texts, criticism and theory in one catalogue you can narrow to Literature and languages. Save what you need to My Books, and read or borrow from over 5 million books with Max.
References
- Carruthers, M. (1979). The Wife of Bath and the painting of lions. PMLA, 94(2), 209–222. https://doi.org/10.2307/461886
- Modern Language Association. (n.d.). Citations by format. MLA Style Center. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://style.mla.org/works-cited/citations-by-format/
- Modern Language Association. (2016, August 11). I am citing a paginated journal article that appears online. Should I include the page range, the URL, or the DOI as the location element in the works-cited-list entry? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/page-range-and-doi/
- Modern Language Association. (2018a, February 16). When is Press spelled out in a publisher's name in the new MLA style? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/press-in-publishers-names/
- Modern Language Association. (2018b, December 12). If Publishing is part of a publisher's name on the title page of my source, should I include that word as part of the publisher's name in my works-cited-list entry? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/names-of-publishers/
- Modern Language Association. (2019, July 5). Should a Norton Critical Edition be listed as a version or as a series in a works-cited-list entry? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/edition-as-version-or-series/
- Modern Language Association. (2021, April 1). In-text citations: An overview. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/in-text-citations-overview/
- Modern Language Association. (2025, September 10). How do I cite numbered poems from an anthology? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/cite-numbered-poems-from-anthology/
- Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Wuthering Heights [Oxford World's Classics, edited by J. Bugg]. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/wuthering-heights-9780198834786
- Preedy, C. K. (2018). "Women's weapons": Education and female revenge on the early modern stage. In L. Dawson & F. McHardy (Eds.), Revenge and gender in classical, medieval and Renaissance literature (pp. 181–200). Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474414098.003.0010
- Queen Mary University of London. (2025). First year reading list: English literature and creative writing modules [Welcome week, 2025/26]. QMplus. https://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/mod/page/view.php?id=2660360
- Southern Utah University. (2026). ENGL 2200-01: Literature and culture [Syllabus, Fall 2026]. https://my.suu.edu/syllabus/202630/ENGL-2200-01/
- University of Liverpool Department of English. (n.d.). Getting ready. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/english/welcome/getting-ready/
- University of Saskatchewan Department of English. (2025). Requirements for essays 2025-26 [PDF]. https://artsandscience.usask.ca/english/documents/requirements-for-essays.pdf
- University of Warwick. (2026a). EN121/EN2J5/EN3J5: Medieval and early modern literature (terms 1 & 2) [Reading list, 2026/27]. https://warwick.rl.talis.com/lists/29a44451-8ec7-4703-aa9e-6ba4c7e52090.html
- University of Warwick. (2026b). EN122/EN2J6/EN3J6: Modes of reading (terms 1 & 2) [Reading list, 2026/27]. https://warwick.rl.talis.com/lists/b19746f3-2b77-4554-95f9-6ba4f1fa92e8.html
- University of Warwick Library. (2025, December 10). Referencing. English and Comparative Literary Studies subject guide. https://warwick.libguides.com/c.php?g=701576&p=5056847
- W. W. Norton & Company. (n.d.-a). The Norton anthology of English literature: The sixteenth and early seventeenth century (11th ed., Vol. B). Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324062639
- W. W. Norton & Company. (n.d.-b). The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury tales. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393643503