Research Guides: ENGL 4365: Victorian Literature: Primary Source Resources

Historical Newspapers

The Times Digital Archive, 1785 to 2014
"World's newspaper of record." Covers all major international historical events. Every page of every issue, from 1785 to 2014.
British Periodicals I & II
British periodicals, late 17th to early 20th centuries. History of Britain and its colonies, as well as a British view of events in America and the world.
Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
Complete, full-color run of the worlds most iconic illustrated newspaper. Covers topics such as news, wars, royal events, scientific invention, exploration, fashion, and more.
Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2015
Every issue of The Economist from 1843 to 2015, including full-color images, multiple search indexes, and browsing facilities. Timely reporting, concise commentary, and comprehensive analysis of global news, including political, business, scientific, technological, and cultural developments and the connections between them.
Every issue of The Economist from 1843 to 2015, including full-color images, multiple search indexes, and browsing facilities. Timely reporting, concise commentary, and comprehensive analysis of global news, including political, business, scientific, technological, and cultural developments and the connections between them.

Librarian

Hannah Menendez

she/her/hers

Contact:

hmenendez@shsu.edu
936-294-3195
NGL 223J (Library)

Finding Primary Sources

Below are links to library databases and online collections that include pamphlets, news articles, books, objects in museums, images and more from nineteenth-century Britain. On the left side are historical newspapers. If you need help accessing or navigating a library database, contact your subject librarian (Hannah Menendez) or go to https://library.shsu.edu/askalibrarian/ to chat live with a librarian.

Primary Source Databases at the Library:

Nineteenth (19th) Century Collections Online
Monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other documents in both Western and non-Western languages. Primary collection themes are:
- Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange
- British Politics and Society
- British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture
- European Literature 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index
Citations for millions of books, official publications, archival collections, and journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. Links out to full text when available (including many items in British Periodicals).
JSTOR 19th Century British Pamphlets
Primary source collection of pamphlets (mostly 19th century, but with some extension into the 17th and 18th centuries), primarily produced in Britain, but pertaining to many countries and peoples.
Gale Primary Sources
Cross-search six primary-source collections from Gale, including: Times of London, Illustrated London News, Burney Collection, 18th Century Collections Online (ECCO), 19th Century Collections Online (NCCO), and 19th Century U.S. Newspapers.
Eight Centuries (formerly Nineteenth (19th) Century Masterfile)
Eight Centuries is a vast scholarly database for finding published material from the 12th century through 1930. Through enhancement and implementation of dozens of historically significant scholarly indexes, it offers multidisciplinary coverage of primary materials in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Engineering, History of Science, Law, Economics, Religion, Psychology, Government Documents, Visual Arts, Music, and the Physical Sciences.

Primary Sources for 19th Century Britain Guide

Links to Open Access Digital Collections & Archives:

(These are not managed by the Library.)

British History Online
British History Online is a not-for-profit digital library based at the Institute of Historical Research. It brings together material for British history from the collections of libraries, archives, museums and academics. These primary and secondary sources, which range from medieval to twentieth century, are easily searchable and browsable online.
English Heritage - Victorians
English Heritage cares for over 400 historic buildings, monuments and sites - from world-famous prehistoric sites to grand medieval castles, from Roman forts on the edges of the empire to a Cold War bunker. Through these, we bring the story of England to life for over 10 million people each year.
Connected Histories
Connected Histories brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth century Britain with a single federated search that allows sophisticated searching of names, places and dates.
British Library
The British Library’s collection includes books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, photographs, newspapers and sound. Many of our digital collections provide material for free online.
Royal Museums Greenwich
Royal Museums Greenwich comprises the Royal Observatory, Cutty Sark, National Maritime Museum and Queen’s House. We are also home to The Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre and the Caird Library and Archive.

Together we’re dedicated to enriching people’s understanding of the sea, the exploration of space, and Britain's role in world history.
EuroDocs: Primary Sources, Britain 1816-1918
Links connect to European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated.
In addition you will find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation. The sources cover a broad range of historical happenings (political, economic, social and cultural).
The British National Archives
We are a non-ministerial department, and the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, and for England and Wales. We are the guardians of over 1,000 years of iconic national documents. We are expert advisers in information and records management and are a cultural, academic and heritage institution. We fulfil a leadership role for the archive sector and work to secure the future of physical and digital records.
The British Museum Online
Collection online allows access to almost four and a half million objects in more than two million records. High definition images can be enlarged and examined in detail which will enable you to view the incredible workmanship on the Royal Game of Ur, or the intricate carving on this African hunting horn – just a few of the thousands of highlights to discover.
Ashmolean Museum Oxford - Collection Online
Collection Online consists of a selection of object records from across the Museum's curatorial departments. These range from basic inventory records with object type, image and accession number to catalogue records that are cross-searchable by date, place, material, person, period and dimensions. A number of separate, subject-specific databases remain available here and will gradually be incorporated into the main Collections Online.
Digital Bodleian
Digital Bodleian makes portions of the Bodleian's extraordinary library collections open to a wide variety of users from around the world for learning, teaching and research. Oxford University, UK.
Cambridge Digital Library
A home for the discovery of digitised material and research outputs from the University of Cambridge and beyond.
University College London Library Digital Collecitons
UCL Digital Collections is home to the Library's digitised materials and research data. You can search the collections, or browse an overview of all our holdings.
Victorian Women Writers Project
The Victorian Women Writers Project (VWWP) began in 1995 at Indiana University and is primarily concerned with the exposure of lesser-known British women writers of the 19th century. The collection represents an array of genres - poetry, novels, children's books, political pamphlets, religious tracts, histories, and more. VWWP contains scores of authors, both prolific and rare.
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave Ownership
The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery has been established at UCL with the generous support of the Hutchins Center at Harvard. The Centre builds on two earlier projects based at UCL tracing the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain: the ESRC-funded Legacies of British Slave-ownership project (2009-2012), and the ESRC and AHRC-funded Structure and significance of British Caribbean slave-ownership 1763-1833 (2013-2015). Includes maps.