Contact Librarian: Jill Hollingsworth
Nineteenth Century Periodicals
I. Why Bother?
19th-century periodical articles provide a "unique record of contemporary opinion across an enormous span of subject areas," including literature, religion, politics, social science, political economy, women's writing, science, and the arts. Individual periodicals were the forum for debate in a much broader range of disciplines than they are today (Wellesley Index).
19th-century periodicals were also where major literary works such as Dickens's Oliver Twist were first published. At their height, monthly magazines published some of the best writing of the era, including fiction by Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot, Hardy, and Henry James; poetry by Tennyson and the Brownings; and essays by Arnold, Ruskin, and Pater (Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia 591).
II. Starting Points for the Study of 19th-Century Periodicals
British Literary Magazines
Detailed descriptions of the content and history of British literary magazines from 1698 to the mid-1980s. Volumes 2 and 3 cover 19th century magazines.
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals on CD-ROM
http://old.library.georgetown.edu/service/cdnet/app.cfm?appname=WellesleyIndToVictorianPer
An index to Victorian-era periodicals, the Wellesley Index provides a record of nineteenth-century thought and opinion in literature, religion, politics, social science, economics, archaeology, science, and the arts. It is also a major source for research on Victorian women writers. The Wellesley Index is considered an essential research tool for Victorian-era studies because the periodicals indexed were a major forum for debate in the period; because many of the periodicals were the vehicles for the first publication of major literary works (e.g., Dickens' Oliver Twist); and because most of the periodicals are not indexed anywhere else.
LAU Ref Stacks Z 2005 .H6. The CD-ROM version indexes periodicals that were not included in the print edition and includes all the corrections made to the print version. Unlike the print edition, the CD-ROM index can be searched by article-keyword.
Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia
Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture
Literary Journal in America to 1900: A Guide to Information Sources
Victorian Periodicals Review
Journal that surveys current scholarship and criticism of the Victorian period.
LAU Periodical Stacks
Popular Magazine in Britain and the United States, 1880-1960
English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900
Victorian Periodicals: A Guide to Research
http://victorianresearch.org/
Within the Victoria Research web are two pages (the periodicals section of Patrick Leary's "Libraries and Bibliographies" page and Rosemary T. VanArsdel's Selected Bibliography) which provide a guide to archives, libraries, journals, bibliographies, discussion lists, and syllabi related to the study of the Victorian period.
III. Sample Bibliographies of Subjects Reflected in 19th-Century Periodicals
British Empire in the Victorian Press, 1832–1867: A Bibliography
Crime in Victorian Britain: An Annotated Bibliography from Nineteenth-Century British Magazines
IV. Full-Text Sources of 19th-Century Periodicals
American Periodicals Series Online (1740 to 1940)
http://0-proquest.umi.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/pqdweb?RQT=575&TS=1089143595&clientId=5604&DBId=5197&LASTSRCHMODE=2
Digital images of historically significant American periodicals from 1740 to 1900, including literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and popular magazines. All typography, drawings, graphic elements, and article layouts appear exactly as originally published. Allows searching by article type (e.g., letter, obituary, poetry, recipe, ad, editorial cartoon, review).
http://0-britishperiodicals.chadwyck.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/
Facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, archaeology, architecture, and the social sciences.
HarpWeek: The Civil War Era, Reconstruction I & II and Gilded Age I (1857-1912)
http://0-app.harpweek.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/
Provides electronic access to all issues of Harper's Weekly (including all illustrations and advertisements) published between 1857 (first issue) and 1912, with the capacity to browse or search by date, by literary genre, and by a person's occupation. Provides four topical indexes: subject, illustrations, literature & publishing, and advertising.
http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/
Collaborative effort between the University of Michigan and Cornell University. Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction digitized by the University of Michigan. Includes 1,600 books and 50,000 journal articles with images scanned from the 19th century volumes. Strengths are education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Cornell University's contributions include 109 monographs (267 volumes) and 22 journals (955 volumes) with imprints primarily between 1840 - 1900.
http://www.history.rochester.edu/godeys/
This important journal included fashion plates as well as poems, fiction, editorials, literary notices, fashion and needlework patterns, and advice articles. See American Periodicals Series Online database and University of Vermont for additional issues.
Internet Library of Early Journals
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ilej/
A joint project of the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Oxford, this site provides digitized, searchable collections of important 18th- and 19th-century British periodicals. The core collection includes at least 20 consecutive years of three 19th-century periodicals: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Notes & Queries, and The Builder.
Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (NCSE)
http://www.ncse.ac.uk/index.html
The Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (ncse) is a free, online edition of six nineteenth-century periodicals and newspapers. It is formed by two integrated components: the 'Facsimile' - a collection of full-page facsimiles and textual transcripts generated through OCR; and the 'Keyword' - an index of keywords and person, place and institution names. Both components are fully searchable.
http://0-www.umi.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/pqdauto?COPT=U0ZEPTImU01EPTQmSU5UPTAmREJTPTFBQ0Q@
Complete, full-text archive of the New York Times, from its first issue on September 18, 1851, through 2005, with coverage of national and international news. Includes coverage of nineteenth century events such as the Civil War, the opening of the Suez Canal, and the assassination of President James Garfield. NOTE: The newspaper was titled the New York Daily Times from 1851-1857. In 1857, its name was changed to the New York Times.
Ref A121.N44 1851- .
Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical
http://www.sciper.leeds.ac.uk/
This project seeks to trace the representation of science, technology, and medicine across a wide range of 19th-century periodicals. It is jointly organized by the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies in the Department of English Literature at the University of Sheffield and the Division of History and Philosophy of Science in the School of Philosophy at the University of Leeds. SciPer aims "to identify and analyze the representation of science, technology and medicine, as well as the inter-penetration of science and literature, in the general periodical press in Britain between 1800 and 1900." It addresses not only the reception of scientific ideas in the general press, but also examines the creation of non-specialist forms of scientific discourse within the periodical format and the ways in which they interact with other kinds of articles found in nineteenth-century periodicals
New Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism: British and American Literature to 1904
Reprints excerpts of criticism from newspapers, magazines, journals, and book-length studies. Each volume covers a different period, beginning with Medieval–Early Renaissance and ending with Late Victorian–Edwardian. Separate index volume.
http://0-infotrac.galegroup.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/itweb/wash43584?db=ttda
Searchable, electronic version of The Times, Britain's newspaper of record, essential for primary source research in British history, politics, and culture. Provides a complete full-text and full-image archive of The Times from 1785 to 1985.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/
Includes a newspaper title directory (1690 - present) and searchable digitized images of selected local and regional newspapers (1880- 1922).
V. Citation Indexes to 19th-Century Periodicals
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals on CD-ROM
http://old.library.georgetown.edu/service/cdnet/app.cfm?appname=WellesleyIndToVictorianPer
An index to Victorian-era periodicals, the Wellesley Index provides a record of nineteenth-century thought and opinion in literature, religion, politics, social science, economics, archaeology, science, and the arts. It is also a major source for research on Victorian women writers. The Wellesley Index is considered an essential research tool for Victorian-era studies because the periodicals indexed were a major forum for debate in the period; because many of the periodicals were the vehicles for the first publication of major literary works (e.g., Dickens' Oliver Twist); and because most of the periodicals are not indexed anywhere else.
LAU Ref Stacks Z 2005 .H6. The CD-ROM version indexes periodicals that were not included in the print edition and includes all the corrections made to the print version. Unlike the print edition, the CD-ROM index can be searched by article-keyword.
http://0-pio.chadwyck.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu
An international, interdisciplinary database providing the complete tables of contents for older issues of 3,536 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences. PIO covers not only journals published by academic presses but also those journals published as popular reading which now provide valuable research materials for scholars. Covers journals from 1770 through 1995.
http://0-poolesplus.odyssi.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/
Featuring an integrated and enhanced version of Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1906) as its centerpiece, 19th Century Masterfile is rounded out by a number of other general and publication-specific indexes to the contents of nineteenth-century journals, newspapers, and books. The improved electronic version of Poole's brings together essential title and date information not included in the print edition and links it with the over 400,000 citations, providing more comprehensive coverage and making the index much easier to use than the printed volumes. Additional indexes, not part of the original Poole's, are integrated with it into a single web resource. The focus is on Anglo-American sources.
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature Ref AI3 .P7
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
http://0-vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?prod=RDGFT
Index to the most popular general-interest magazines and journals published in the United States. For 1890 to 1982, use the Readers' Guide Retrospective.
Ref AI3.R48 and AI3.R496 1890-1996
Literary Reviews in British Periodicals, 1798-1820
Literary Reviews in British Periodicals, 1821-1826.
American Literary and Drama Reviews: An Index to Late Nineteenth Century Periodicals
Index to Nineteenth Century American Art Periodicals
This resource completely indexes all subjects covered in 42 art periodicals published in the United States from 1840 to 1907. Topics include articles on artists, articles on particular works of art, exhibition reviews, information on art collectors and museums, as well as articles on archeology, industry, anthropology, short stories, and poems. Volume 1 arranges journal citations alphabetically by title of journal, then chronologically by year and journal volume number. Volume 2 is an author/subject index. Researchers will find this resource particularly useful for locating contemporary reviews and information on obscure or “out of favor” artists.
VI. 19th-Century Studies
Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia
Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture
Makers of Nineteenth Century Culture, 1800-1914
Nineteenth Century Studies
Interdisciplinary journal published by the Southeastern Nineteenth Century Studies Association.
http://0-www.victoriandatabase.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/victoria.html
Interdisciplinary in scope and updated annually, the Victorian Database Online provides bibliographic information for publications about all aspects of British studies from 1830 to 1914. The database indexes books and book chapters, dissertation abstracts, and articles from more than 500 journals published in 1945 and after. In addition to literature, topics covered include painting, architecture, and music; philosophy and religion; histories of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British colonial empire; military and naval history; politics, commerce, and economics; sociology, women's studies, law, and education; and science, technology, and medicine. Victorian Database Online is part of LITIR's Victorian Studies on the Web which, in addition to the database, provides links to recent and award-winning publications and to notable Victorian Web sites.
http://www.victorianweb.org/
Exceptional comprehensive site for the study of Victorian history, society, and culture in Britain. Covers literature, society, culture, art, politics, economy, religion, philosophy, science, technology, and gender relations. Each area includes biographies, primary texts, analysis, feature articles, and special projects.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/victorian_studies/
The leading interdisciplinary scholarly journal in the field. In the Periodical Stacks (1957- ) and in Project Muse (1999- ).
LAU Periodical Stacks
Library Staff Contact for this page: Jill Hollingsworth
