Nineteenth Century Resources

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Library special collections

Civil disturbance, chartism and riots in nineteenth-century England
Home Office. Disturbance Papers selected from HO 45.
Religion, radicalism and freethought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
Selected pamphlets.
Religion, radicalism and freethought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
Collection of periodicals, 1834-1916.
Religion, radicalism and freethought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
The records of the Leicester Secular Society, 1842-1943.
Religion, radicalism and freethought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
Manchester Domestic Missionary Society reports, 1833-1908.
Women and Victorian values, 1837-1910
Advice books, manuals, and journals for women: parts 5-6.

Eliot Collection
The Eliot Collection comprises editions of twentieth-century English literature. Its nucleus was a small number of books by and about T.S. Eliot, given to the University of York Library in 1972 by the library of King's College, Cambridge. They came from a bequest to King's College by Eliot's friend, John Hayward, and consisted of those books in the Hayward Collection of which King's College already owned copies. The collection has since been expanded, both through the acquisition of new books by gift and purchase, and through transferring to it books previously on the open shelves. It now covers such authors as W.B. Yeats, Robert Graves, D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley, and also the following contemporary authors: Heaney, Hill, and Muldoon.

Databases

The following databases and websites can be used to find primary sources, secondary sources and journal articles.

Primary sources - American Literature

African American Poetry (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
A database of nearly 3,000 poems by African American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1 (1749-1900) This link opens in a new window
Includes approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1749 and 1900 all reproduced as full colour digital editions.

The broadsides cover a range subjects from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports.

The ephemera includes such items as: clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, billheads, menus and invitations for civic, political and private celebrations, stock certificates illustrated with manufacturers’ vignettes, theater and music programs, autobiographies and dying confessions of convicted criminals, theater playbills, sheet almanacs, publishers’ prospectuses, advertisements, newspaper carriers’ addresses, patriotic and popular songs and poems and more.
American Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
A collection of full text archives of American newspapers with page and article facsimile images. The University has access to: Atlanta Constitution; Atlanta Daily World; Chicago Defender; Chicago Tribune; New York Times; New York Tribune; Washington Post.

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American Periodicals Series Online (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
American Periodicals Series Online is a major database containing digitized images of the pages of American magazines, journals and newspapers originating between 1741 and 1900. APS Online has over 7 million pages of content spanning nearly 200 years of American history up to Americas entry into World War II, and includes over 1,500 titles ranging from America 's first scientific journal, Medical Repository, to popular magazines like Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal.

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Archive of Americana This link opens in a new window
Archive of Americana is a major database of over 30 million primary documents which brings together historical collections of books, broadsides, ephemera, government documents, and newspapers to give an insight into every aspect of United States history, culture and daily life across three centuries from 1639 to 1980.

The following collections are available:

- American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1769-1900
- American State Papers, 1789-1838
- Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans 1639-1800
- Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker 1801-1819
- Early American Newspapers, Series I-V, 1690-1922
- U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980
Early American Imprints Series 2: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
With more than 36,000 items, this collection includes virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in the U.S. during the 19th century along and a large number of state papers and early government materials.
Early American Newspapers, Series I-V, 1690-1922 (America's Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
Early American Newspapers gives access to the full text of over 1200 newspaper titles from across the United States published between 1690 and 1922.

Primary sources - British Literature

19th Century UK Periodicals, Part 1: Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure This link opens in a new window
Formerly 19th Century UK Periodicals Series 1: New Readerships
Provides access to facsimile editions of almost 100 periodicals from the 19th century focusing on women, sports and leisure, children, and humour and satire. The collection is mainly based on the repositories of the British Library and the National Library of Scotland.

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British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries is a major collection of diaries and correspondence spanning more than 400 years and giving access to the personal experiences of nearly 500 women. It contains around 100,000 pages of published letters and diaries and over 4,000 facsimile pages of previously unpublished manuscripts. Letters and diaries of famous historic and literary figures can be found alongside the thoughts and experiences of ordinary women, including the unpublished letters and diaries of women who served during both world wars. The texts themselves are accompanied by biographies of the authors and bibliographic details of the sources.

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British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Includes: Parts I & II (1800-1900); Part III (1741-1950); Part IV (1732-1950); Part V (1746-1950); Part VI (Ireland, 1797-1950).

Also known as: 19th Century British Newspapers
A major collection of almost 6.4 million facsimile pages from more than 240 national, regional, and local newspapers published between the 1700's and 1950. The collection includes both daily and weekly publications with titles from established country or university towns, the industrial towns of the Midlands and the North, and from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Newspapers associated with particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule have also been included along with penny papers aimed at a working class and clerical readership.

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Carlyle Letters Online This link opens in a new window
The Carlyle Letters Online gives access to the full text of over 10,000 of the collected letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle.

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Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
More than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand.

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Guardian, 1821-2003 and Observer, 1791-2003 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
The Guardian from 2004 onward is also available via YorSearch.
The Observer from 2004 onward is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of page and article facsimile images of the Guardian (1821 - 2003) and the Observer (1791 - 2003).

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House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest UK Parliamentary Papers) This link opens in a new window
The University has access to the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (18th - 21st centuries).
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers gives access to over 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to 2023, with supplementary material back to 1688. It includes page images and searchable full text for each paper, along with detailed indexing.

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Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003 This link opens in a new window
The complete facsimile archive of the Illustrated London News, the worlds first fully illustrated weekly newspaper published between 1842 and 2003. The archive includes over 260,000 pages of text and more than 1.5 million full colour images.

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Irish Times, 1859 onwards (excluding the most recent 2 years) and Weekly Irish Times, 1876 - 1958 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
The Irish Times current content is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of page and article facsimile images of The Irish Times (1859 onwards, excluding the most recent 2 years) and The Weekly Irish Times (1876 - 1958). Coverage includes The Times Pictorial.

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Literary Manuscripts: Victorian Manuscripts from the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library This link opens in a new window
Selected collections of the manuscripts of Victorian authors from the Berg Collection available in their entirety as facsimile images. The manuscripts include literary drafts, correspondence, financial documents and personal items by or relating to the authors. The authors represented include: Matthew Arnold; the Brontes; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Robert Browning; Wilkie Collins; Joseph Conrad; Charles Dickens; George Eliot ; George Gissing ; Thomas Hardy; Henry James; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; John Ruskin; Alfred Tennyson; William Makepeace Thackeray.

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London Low Life This link opens in a new window
London Low Life contains a wealth of full colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. It also gives access to a range of secondary resources, including a chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links to other websites.

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Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration This link opens in a new window
Concentrating on the period 1800 to 1924, this collection of primary materials covers all aspects of the migration experience, from departures to arrival and permanent settlement.

Included in the collection are letters, travel journals, diaries and oral histories giving first-hand accounts of the experience of emigration and settlement alongside scrapbooks, government papers, hand-drawn maps, watercolours, objects, emigration pamphlets, shipping papers and rare printed material which provide context to the history of migration, legislation and living conditions during this period.

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Past Masters - English Letters This link opens in a new window
A full text collection of the correspondence, diaries, memoirs and notebooks from many of the most distinguished writers, statesmen, scientists, churchmen, explorers and philosophers in British history.
Times Digital Archive, 1785 - 2019 This link opens in a new window
A full-image archive of every page published by The Times (London) from 1785 until 2019. The text within the images is fully searchable at the article level.

For The Times from 2020 onwards see the entry: Times 1985 - present.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Times of India, 1838 onwards (excluding the most recent 9 years) (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Times of India current content is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of page and article facsimile images of The Times of India from 1838 onwards (excluding the most recent 9 years).

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Victorian Popular Culture This link opens in a new window
Victorian Popular Culture contains a wide range of primary source material, mostly digitised in colour, relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. There is an emphasis on visual sources and rare printed material including rare books, periodicals, playbills and handbills, posters, prints, scrapbooks, photographs, programmes, pamphlets, ephemera (e.g. ticket stubs, postcards, newspaper cuttings), and songbooks.

The University has access to:
- Spiritualism, Sensation & Magic
- Circuses, Sideshows & Freaks
- Music Hall, Theatre & Popular Entertainment

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Secondary sources

Bibliography of British and Irish History (Brepolis) This link opens in a new window
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Previously known as the Royal Historical Society Bibliography this is a comprehensive guide to historical writing about the history of Britain, Ireland, and the British overseas from 55BC to the present.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index is the major bibliographic resource for 19th century research, providing integrated access to 10 indexes covering books, official publications, archives, newspapers, and periodicals at the article level. Currently C19 contains nearly 17 million records but is continuously updated as more records become available.

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LION - Literature Online This link opens in a new window
This resource is a searchable, online library of over 300,000 works of English and American poetry, prose and drama. It also provides access to a growing collection of online journals, reference works, author biographies and the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL).

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
This bibliography contains citations for journal articles, books, book chapters and theses in literature, language, linguistics and folklore. It is the major literature bibliography.

The publication years covered by this resource are from the 1920s onwards.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Oxford Scholarship Online: Literature This link opens in a new window
Titles from Oxford University Press covering a wide range of topics, themes and periods in literature.

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Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE, founded by Johns Hopkins University Press, is a database of over 380 full text scholarly journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences from over 70 (mainly university press) publishers.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers & Periodicals, 1800-1900 (Series 2) This link opens in a new window
The Waterloo Directory provides a comprehensive, dynamic bibliography of 19th century periodical literature with information about 50,000 titles from a wide variety of subject areas. Facsimile title pages are available for 9,000 titles and many entries have additional commentary drawn from secondary sources. Library locations are provided for the UK and North America and the Directory is regularly updated.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science provides access to the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

For help using this resource for bibliometrics see Bibliometrics: a practical guide.

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Journals

Victorian Studies Devoted to the study of British culture of the Victorian period, this quarterly journal includes interdisciplinary articles on comparative literature, social and political history, and the histories of education, philosophy, fine arts, economics, law, and science and includes an extensive book review section in each issue.
Nineteenth Century Literature Unites a broad-based group of transatlantic authors and poets, literary characters, and discourses.
English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 ELT publishes articles on fiction, poetry, drama, or subjects of cultural interest in the 1880 to 1920 period of British literature with an emphasis on less prominent authors of the period.
Victorian Poetry Publishes articles from a broad range of theoretical/critical angles, including but not confined to new historicism, feminism, and social/cultural issues.
Victorian literature and culture High quality original work concerned with all areas of Victorian literature and culture, including music and the fine arts.

English and Related Literature

Nineteenth Century

Nineteenth Century Resources

View resources by period or theme:

Medieval

Renaissance

Eighteenth Century

Nineteenth Century

Twentieth Century - Present

Global and Postcolonial Literature

websites

Databases

Databases and Online Sources

Primary sources - American Literature

Primary sources - British Literature

Secondary sources

Journals