Research Guides: English Language & Literature: Victorian Age

Primary Source Discovery Databases

These databases attempt to bring together all of their respective primary source collections into one databases for greater discoverability.

Gale Primary Sources (formerly Artemis) This link opens in a new window
Gale Primary Sources cross searches all Gale digital archives. These primary source collections provide pages of newspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs.
AM Explorer This link opens in a new window
AMExplorer allows users to search across multiple Adam Matthew collections that include millions of pages of social sciences and humanities primary sources spanning the 15th – 21st centuries.
ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new window
ProQuest One Literature provides content and tools to support the study of literature from a variety of sources including diverse primary texts, criticism, full-text journals, book reviews, dissertations, eBooks, reference material, audio, and video.

Major Nineteenth Century Index

C19: The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window
Contains citations to millions of books, periodicals, official documents, newspapers and archives published between 1790 and 1919. It is probably the most comprehensive source for English language material printed in the 19th Century.

Newspapers & Periodicals

London Times (1785-2019) [via Gale Times Digital Archive] This link opens in a new window
Includes digitized images of every page of the (London) Times.
British Library Newspapers (1732-1950) This link opens in a new window
Contains digitized images of historic newspapers, newsbooks, ephemera and national & regional papers from the British Isles. Searches Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers and Seventeenth & Eighteenth Century Burney Collection Newspapers simultaneously.
British Periodicals Online This link opens in a new window
Contains full-text articles published in hundreds of British periodicals during 1680s-1930s. Includes magisterial quarterlies and scholarly & professional organs, as well as coterie art periodicals, penny weeklies and illustrated family magazines.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Access guaranteed through May 2027
19th Century UK Periodicals offers content related to nineteenth-century literature and culture, empire, feminism, the history of the book, the creative and performing arts, sport and leisure, science and medicine, and the professions.
19th Century British Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
19th Century British Pamphlets offers online access to the most significant British pamphlets held in UK research libraries. The pamphlets are organized into collections and focus on the political, economic and social issues of the time.
Gale NewsVault This link opens in a new window
Contains multiple historical news collections, including British Historical Newspapers (1600-1900), Illustrated London News Historical Archive (1842-2003), (London) Times Digital Archive (1785-2008) and (London) Times Literary Supplement (TLS) Historical Archive (1902-2010).
Illustrated London News Archive, 1842-2003 This link opens in a new window
Contains digitized images of every page of the world's first fully illustrated weekly newspaper.

Internet Library of Early Journals
Contains digitized images of six 18th and 19th century journals: Annual Register, Notes and Queries, Gentleman's Magazine, The Builder, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, 1802-1907 This link opens in a new window
Contains subject and author indexes to nearly 500 British and American periodicals published between 1802 and 1907.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Contains digitized images of the pages of mainstream American, British, Irish, and Scottish newspapers and other periodicals, including The New York Times (1851-2007), The Guardian & Observer (1791-2003), The Irish Times (1859-2010), The Scotsman (1817-1950), American Periodical Series Online (1730s-1930s) and more.
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Contains citations to prose (excludes poetry) published in 45 major Victorian periodicals during 1824-1900. Identifies authors and provides a bibliography for each contributor.
Punch Historical Archive (1841-1992) This link opens in a new window
Access guaranteed through May 2027
Punch Historical Archive contains all issues of the magazine from 1841 to 1992, including Almanacks and other special numbers (issues), as well as prefaces, epilogues, indexes, and other specially produced material from the bound volumes.

Manuscripts & Ephemera

British Literary Manuscripts Online: 1120 -1900 This link opens in a new window
Contains facsimile images of literary manuscripts, including letters and diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the Restoration and Victorian era.

Broadside Ballads Online Database
Contains broadside ballads from Oxford's Bodleian Library collections, ranging in date from 16th to 19th centuries, indexed by title, first line, and subjects of text and illustration.

Defining Gender, 1450-1910 This link opens in a new window
Contains digitized images of rare print and manuscript texts on many aspects of gender, sexuality and culture in Great Britain from 1450-1910.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window
Contains maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings and rare books devoted to colonial history, politics, culture and society.
English Drama (1280-1915) This link opens in a new window
Contains dramatic works published in the British Isles from the late thirteenth century to the early twentieth century. Includes Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, as well as Medieval morality plays, mystery cycles, and nineteenth-century closet dramas.
English Poetry (600-1900) This link opens in a new window
Contains poems published in the British Isles from the eighth century to the early twentieth century. Includes canonical and lesser known poets, including women poets.
English Poetry, 2nd Edition This link opens in a new window
Contains poems published by poets in the British Isles and the British Empire, including Commonwealth and ex-colonial countries.
Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online, 1543-1945 This link opens in a new window
Contains materials focused on the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of one country's movement on those of the others.
Global Commodities This link opens in a new window
Contains manuscript materials, maps, posters, paintings, photographs, ephemera, objects and rare books on the study of global commodities in world history. Users can explore the origins of the commodity -- coffee & tea, spices, silver & gold, opium, cotton, etc. -- their first uses, the trade that developed and the ways in which these items were marketed and consumed.
U.K. Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window
Contains digitized images of the parliamentary papers produced between 1801-1900.
Literary Manuscripts (Berg) This link opens in a new window
Contains manuscripts, working notebooks, and early editions from Victorian authors such as Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot, and more.

NINES: Nineteenth-Century Scholarship Online
"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 window
Contains primary sources from the Long 19th century, including works in Western as well as non-Western languages, sourced from rare collections at libraries and other institutions around the globe.
Nineteenth-Century Fiction This link opens in a new window
Contains works of prose fiction by over 100 British and Irish authors from 1782-1903. Includes popular romances, sensation fiction, Colonial adventure novels and children’s literature.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Contains documents and collections covering an extensive time period 1490-2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world.
Women Writers Online This link opens in a new window
Contains works written by English and American women between 1400-1850. Includes verse, fiction, and drama, as well as autobiographies, domestic manuals, and critical commentaries on select works and authors.