Copyright and Citation Information

  1. Copyright Policies
  2. Self-archiving Details
  3. How to Cite the LE

Copyright policies

The Contributor undertakes to provide Article(s) that are of their own authoring and are not subject to any copyright claim by any other publisher. The Contributor warrants that the Contributor is the sole proprietor and owner of all rights in and to the Article and that the Article has not previously been published in the form offered to the Encyclopedia. The Contributor transfers to The Literary Dictionary Company Limited the sole and exclusive right to publish and sell the Article in all media in all countries and in all languages for as long as The Literary Dictionary Company shall exist.

We are happy for authors to reuse parts of their essays published first on our site under these conditions:

  1. they are not published in a competing electronic database
  2. they do not reproduce the exact form of words in the essay and do not reproduce the article in its entirety
  3. acknowledge an initial publication of the article or parts thereof by The Literary Encyclopedia, with proper citation of the online version we have published

We prefer that articles submitted for publication to The Literary Encyclopedia contain new material that has not been published elsewhere. In our reference articles (profiles of authors and works), we accept a certain degree of overlap with authors' previously published research, and are happy to acknowledge first publication of specific portions of an article in a printed venue (whether journal article, book chapter or reference entry); however, we will not re-publish a previously published article to which no new material has been added or substantial content adjustments made.

Contributors can include their essays published in the LE in teaching compendia, course-handbooks and other pedagogical resources they wish to use with their students (with due acknowledgement of first publication). The publisher's pdf version can be used in such cases.

Self-archiving details

Since we are a not-for-profit publisher, operating without the backing of large corporate resources, we cannot offer open access to our published articles at this time. All our revenues are generated from institutional and personal subscriptions (which, after all publishing, maintenance and development costs are covered, are disbursed as royalties paid to our editors and contributing authors), so if the articles published in the LE are freely reproduced elsewhere on the internet, such subscriptions will – in due course – be rendered nugatory.

All of our contributors have the right to deposit their work produced for The Literary Encyclopedia in a restricted-access institutional repository, with due acknowledgement, while we retain copyright. We ask our contributing authors to refrain from posting the articles submitted to the LE elsewhere on the internet for a period of at least 12 months from the date of original publication. Contributors are encouraged to list their LE publication on their CVs and publication lists, and provide the link to the published version of their article.

Exception: contributing authors can use the pdf version of their article(s) published in the LE freely in their teaching activities (see section on copyright above; this permission includes teathing platforms such as Blackboard or Moodle).

After 12 months, our contributors can post the accepted final version of the article (the version that has gone through editorial review and was accepted for publication in the LE, but not the version created by the Publisher, with its specific content and layout, i.e. the pdf version downloadable from the website) on their departmental or personal website, in their publicly-accessible institutional repository, or on other professional websites such as academia.edu. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged, and a link must be provided to the online published version.

How to Cite the LE

To cite the Literary Encyclopedia, we recommend the following bibliographic format, which you may need to adapt to meet the style requirements of the publication for which you are writing. Each entry displays clearly the citation information at the bottom of the published article. For example, the citation information page for Linda Morra’s entry on Michel Tremblay will show you a citation of the following form:

Morra, Linda. "Michel Tremblay". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 July 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5296, accessed 05 August 2015.]

If an article was originally published, and then revised at a later date, the citation information will show both authors (the author of the original article and the revising author), and the two dates (the original date of publication and the revision date). You can modify the format of the citation to conform to the style requirements of the publication for which you are using the citation.

Todd, Richard, Nicolas Tredell. "Martin Amis". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 November 2002; last revised 24 June 2012. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5097, accessed 05 August 2015.]

If you require other kinds of bibliographic information, you may find the following facts helpful.

  • Title: The Literary Encyclopedia
  • Founding Editor: Robert Clark
  • World Wide Web URL: https://www.litencyc.com
  • Publisher:
    The Literary Dictionary Company Registered Office: 5 Devonia Road London N1 8JQ
  • International Standard Serial Number: ISSN 1747-678X

If you have any further questions, please contact the LE.

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