Oxford LibGuides: Early modern history (British & W European c. 1500-c. 1800): Home

Key libraries

Bodleian Library

Bodleian History Faculty Library

Taylor Institution Library (18th C)

Looking for books, journals, databases and more, held in Oxford libraries?

> Search Oxford Libraries Online (SOLO)

Looking for early modern and modern archives held in the Bodleian Libraries?

> Search Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts

Key databases

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) provides a large and growing resource of essential medieval and early modern sources online. It is an excellent way to access a large library of books essential to the study of medieval and early modern England, Scotland and Ireland. Includes selections of annals and chronicles, calendars and registers, saints’ lives, Rolls’ Series and HMC reports and Statutes of the Realm.
British History Online A digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Some of the highlights include: House of Commons and Lords Journals, Victoria County History, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Survey of London, Statutes of the Realm, Thurloe State Papers, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae and much more. Premium content which Oxford has subscribed to include: Calendars of State Papers (Domestic & Foreign), etc.
State Papers Online I - IV: The Tudors, Stuarts & Commonwealth 1509-1714 State Papers Online contains the Tudor and Stuart governments “domestic” and “foreign” papers – the equivalent of today’s documents from the Home and Foreign Offices and the Royal Archives. These everyday working papers of the British royal government reveal Tudor and Stuart society and government, religion and politics in all its drama allowing scholars to trace the remarkable – and frequently violent – transformations of the 16th & 17th centuries. This major resource re-unites the Domestic, Foreign, Borders, Scotland, and Ireland State Papers of Britain with the Registers of the Privy Council and other State Papers now housed in the Cotton, Harley and Lansdowne collections in the British Library.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) Useful for the early colonial period, this digital collection of early printed books 1473-1700 contains over 96,000 images of titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475 - 1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised edition. Includes works printed in British North America. Most is not full-text searchable. Use the EEBO TCP version.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Useful for the early colonial period, this digital collection of 150,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800. ECCO includes every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.
Making of the Modern World, 1450-1850 Digital facsimile images on every page of 61,000 works of literature on economic and business published from 1450 through 1850.
17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This database provides access to over 1,270 newsbooks, newspapers, pamphlets and a variety of other news materials published in England, Ireland and Scotland, plus papers from British colonies in Asia and the Americas. The collection is particularly rich in 18th century London newspapers.
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All the major titles are included, such as the Daily Courant from 1702 to 1735, the first daily newspaper published in London, and the London Gazette from 1665. Periodicals, such as Tatler (1709-1711) and Spectator (1711-1712), are also included.

Also represented are English provincial titles from 1712, Irish newspapers (the earliest being the Dublin Intelligence of 1691), Scottish ones from 1708 onwards, and many 18th century American ones too, including the New England Courant (1721-1723).
Electronic Enlightenment Electronic Enlightenment has as its foundation major printed editions of correspondence centred on the "long 18th century". From the correspondence itself, the supporting critical apparatus and additional research, the project has developed a set of information categories that creates an intricate network of connections between the documents

Ways to access subscription resources off campus:

Single Sign On. Sign on to SOLO, Databases A-Z or your University email and your browser retains the sign on. This allows you to access most e-resources as if you were on campus.
VPN (Virtual Private Network). Register with IT Services to log on to the network via VPN. Once logged on you can access all e-resources as if you were on campus.

For further information see the Bodleian Libraries remote access guide.

Finding secondary literature - Primary Sources - Reference - New Books & News

Getting started

Finding books and journals

Use SOLO to search for books and journals held in Oxford libraries.

Use author and/or title searches to find books. If you are looking for books on a topic, type in useful subject terms.

E.g. Great Britain History Civil War. [more on subject searching]

Key journals

British journals

Western European journals

Period-specific journals

Finding journal articles

While you can search for journal articles in SOLO, if you are searching by subject it is actually best to use special databases.This is particularly true if you don't have any or only complete references to articles or journals. The recommended databases are:

Historical Abstracts (c. 1450-current; world history excl. North America)
Bibliography of British & Irish History (Roman Britain to current; British, Irish and Commonwealth countries) > IHR Resource Pack
Index Religiosus (church and religious history)

Looking for reviews of book, articles, textbooks and digital resources?

Reviews are typically...

published in history journals (e.g. Past & Present) or newspapers (e.g. Times Literary Supplement, New York Book Reviews, etc.)
indexed in a bibliograpical databases such as Bibliography of British and Irish History or Historical Abstracts (Oxford users only)
published in H-Net;
Reviews in History publishes reviews and reappraisals of significant work in all fields of historical interest. The ejournals includes over 1000 reviews to date and new reviews appear regularly. You can browse reviews by type of review (digital reviews, textbooks, articles, books, etc.) or by subject, period or country.
Choice Reviews Online (Oxford users only): publishes annually more than 7,000 concise reviews of academic titles, including books and electronic resources. The reviews are organized by discipline and also feature bibliographic essays and lists of significant forthcoming titles.You can browse or search through the issue, going back to 1988.

History Librarian (supporting researchers)

Isabel Holowaty

Email Me

Contact:

Upper Reading Room, Room 2.03 (North / History end)
Bodleian Library, Broad Street
Oxford, OX1 3BG

01865 2-77294

Subjects: History - British

History Librarian (supporting students)

Rachel D'Arcy-Brown