Study guide
Study guides are student tools used to help facilitate learning and comprehension of literature, including novels, poetry, short stories, and essays. Most study guides (also known as "book notes") summarize chapters and provide basic literary analysis. Some guides provide character descriptions, style of writing, historical context, themes, author biography, or other useful details about elements of the work.
There are a number of companies that produce study guides, most notably Cliffs Notes (the oldest and most well known), SparkNotes (Barnes & Noble's product), and BookRags (largest collection of study guides).