Proceedings of the Old Bailey London 1674-1834
“A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.” See “Getting Started” and the “Guide to Searching” to get the most of this site.
British Literary Manuscripts Online, c. 1660-1900
British Literary Manuscripts Online, c. 1660-1900, presents facsimile images of literary manuscripts, including letters and diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works, and similar materials. Searching is based on tags and descriptive text associated with each manuscript. Images of the complete manuscript can be viewed, manipulated and navigated on screen. Text of the manuscripts themselves is not searchable.
Bess of Hardwick's Letters, c. 1550-1608
Bess of Hardwick (c.1521/2-1608) is one of Elizabethan England's most famous figures. She is renowned for her reputation as a dynast and indomitable matriarch and perhaps best known as the builder of great stately homes like the magnificent Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth House. Correspondents include servants, friends, family, queens, and officers of state.
Emily Dickinson Archive (EDA) provides high-resolution images of manuscripts of Dickinson’s poetry, along with transcriptions and annotations from selected historical and scholarly editions.
Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700
Complete facsimile images of over 230 manuscripts written or compiled by women living in the British Isle during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Contents include account books, advice, culinary writing, meditation, travel writing, and verse. Perdita manuscripts are indexed by name, place, genre, and first lines of both poetry and prose. This resource is produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University. “Perdita” means “lost woman” and the quest of the Perdita Project has been to find early modern women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form.
A Vision of Britain through Time
“A Vision of Britain through Time” provides a history of Great Britain, 1801-2001, through maps, statistical trends, and historical descriptions of travel in the country. It is operated by the University of Portsmouth in England. Major sections of the site are Places, Statistical Atlas, Historical Maps, Census Reports, Travel Writing, and Learning Resources. Users of this site can perform research in primary sources that are part of the site, particularly involving mapping and historical GIS (Geographical Information System), and read transcripts of travel narratives by major figures, such as James Boswell. This site may be useful to those with a more advanced interest in British history.
This project has been developed to encourage undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers to explore colonial history, politics, culture and society. Material in the collection spans five centuries, charting the story of the rise and fall of empires; from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, right through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century and debates over American Imperialism.
Material in Empire Online has been sourced from a wide range of reputable institutions, with a particularly strong core of documents and images from the British Library.
