Subject Guide
Melissa Jones
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Related Research Guides
Finding Literature-Related Primary Sources in Catalogs
HoyaSearch and other catalogs list authors' published letters, diaries and facsimile manuscripts, as well as non-literary materials published during the period when your author was writing. To find these primary sources, search for subject keywords such as the following:
- Sources
- Description and travel
- Personal narratives
- Correspondence
- Early works
- Correspondence, reminiscences, etc.
- Caricatures and cartoons
- Archives
- Interviews
- Diaries
A few examples: Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 -- Correspondence
For additional information on identifying primary sources, see the Primary Sources subject guide.
Primary Source Collections
- Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime BroadsidesFrom the Harvard Law School Library, this collection comprises more than 280 broadsides advertising public executions in 18th- and 19th-century Britain.
- Emory Women Writers Resource ProjectA collection of edited and unedited texts by women writing from the seventeenth century through the early twentieth century.
- Factory Girls and Serving Maids: Victorian Working-Class Women Poets ArchiveA digital archive of working-class women's poetry in the Victorian period.
- Gale Primary Source Newspapers This link opens in a new windowProvides cross-searching capabilities for several Gale digital collections, including 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, 19th Century UK Periodicals, Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003, Times Digital Archive 1785-1985, Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2006, Picture Post Historical Archive 1938-1957.
- Labouring-Class Writers ProjectThis Project studies the history and culture of working men and women. Our Database of British and Irish Labouring-Class Poets working in the period 1700-1900 contains information about more than 1,400 writers.
- Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new windowCollection of digital facsimile images of 61,000 works of literature on economics and business published from 1450 through 1945. Covers commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade and transport.
Includes:
Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection, 1450-1850
Part II, 1851-1914 - NINES: Nineteenth-Century Studies Online This link opens in a new windowA "scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first."
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new windowFocusing on primary source collections of the nineteenth century, NCCO comprises a variety of material types--monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more--in one cross-searchable location. Collections include Asia and the West; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music and Literature: High & Popular Culture; and European Literature, 1790-1840.
- The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913Includes 197,745 criminal trials held at the Old Bailey, London’s central criminal court.
- Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914From the Harvard Law School Library trial collections, this website has more than 420 trial narratives related to marriage and sexuality.
- Victorian Women Writers ProjectA collection of text, essays, and fiction written during the Victorian period, by women writers.
- The William Blake ArchiveComprises the works of William Blake, including illuminated manuscripts, paintings, drawings, and engravings.
Digitized Newspapers & Periodicals
- 19th Century British Pamphlets (within JSTOR) This link opens in a new windowPamphlets were an important means of public debate in the 19th century, covering key political, social, technological, and environmental issues.
- 19th Century UK Periodicals This link opens in a new windowThis database contains 1.2 million pages of periodicals published in Great Britain from 1800-1900. It includes publications on women, children, leisure and sport, humor, and material regarding the expansion of the British empire.
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new windowFacsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries.
- Gale Primary Source Newspapers This link opens in a new windowProvides cross-searching capabilities for several Gale digital collections, including 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, 19th Century UK Periodicals, Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003, Times Digital Archive 1785-1985, Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2006, Picture Post Historical Archive 1938-1957.
- Internet Library of Early JournalsA digital collection of six eighteenth- and nineteenth- century British journals: Annual Register, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Gentleman's Magazine, Notes & Queries, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and The Builder.
- Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new windowContains full runs of 48 newspapers specially selected by the British Library to best represent nineteenth century Britain. Includes national and regional newspapers, representing a variety of political and social movements and classes.
- Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals. Series 1, 1800-1840A microfilm collection of nineteenth-century periodicals, including titles such as The Monthly Literary Advertiser, The National Register, The Satirist; or, Censor of the Times, and The Christian Lady’s Magazine. Located in LAU Microforms.
- Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (NCSE)A free, online edition of nineteenth-century periodicals and newspapers, including Monthly Repository and Unitarian Chronicle, Northern Star, Leader, English Woman's Journal, Tomahawk, and Publishers' Circular.
- Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical (SciPer)A searchable electronic index to the science content of sixteen nineteenth-century general periodicals.
- Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowSearchable, electronic version of The Times, Britain's newspaper of record, essential for primary source research in British history, politics, and culture. Provides a complete full-text and full-image archive of The Times from 1785 to 1985.
Digital Image Resources
- British Cartoon ArchiveAn online archive of more than 140,000 pieces of cartoon artwork supported by a reference library of newspaper cuttings, books, catalogues and magazines.
- Database of Mid-Victorian Illustration (DMVI)Contains records and images of 868 literary illustrations that were published in or around 1862, along with bibliographic and iconographic details.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowComprehensive digital library containing images of artworks, photographs, architecture, decorative arts, rare books, and items from popular culture. Images may be viewed live in ARTstor or offline in ARTstor's downloadable image viewer.
