Research guides: English Language & Literature: Primary Sources

What are primary sources?

Definition

First hand observations of a time, person or event, or material culture associated with a time, person or event.

Some types

newspapers ... magazines ... diaries ... letters ... proclamations ... speeches ... minutes ... photographs .. paintings ... military, church, synagogue records ... menus ... train schedules ... theatre tickets ...

Library databases

The digital collections linked to below contain facsimiles of early books, serial publications, manuscripts, diary entries, letters, and a range of other primary sources.

Burney - 17th and 18th Century Newspaper Collection
The newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney. Represents the largest collection of 17th and 18th century English news media.
Coverage: 17th and 18th Century
The collection contains 700+ bound volumes of newspaper and news pamphlets that were published mostly in London. The collection also includes English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, the American colonies, Europe and India.
British Literary Manuscripts Online
Facsimile images of literary manuscripts, including letters, diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works.
Coverage: 1150 - 1900
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Full text of works from of over 400 women. Coverage also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography.
Coverage: 1500 - 1950
Defining Gender, 1450-1910
British and European primary source material. Themes include: Conduct and Politeness, Domesticity and the Family, Consumption and Leisure, Education and Sensibility, and The Body.
Coverage: 1450 - 1910
Canadiana
Find documents from 1st European contact to recent student activism, including items relating to Indigenous-settler relations, cookbooks, women's writings, and more.
Coverage: Pre-1970
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment
Diaries, letters, and memoirs documenting the relationships among peoples and with the environment.
Coverage: 1534 - 1860
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Facsimiles of works printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, British North America, and works in English printed elsewhere.
Coverage: 1475 - 1700
EEBO contains images of works by such authors as Malory, Spenser, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton, and Galileo. The database also includes musical exercises by Henry Purcell, novels by Aphra Behn, prayer books, pamphlets, proclamations, almanacs, calendars, and many other primary resources.
Early English Books Online Text Creation partnership
Find standardized, accurate XML/SGML encoded electronic text editions of early print books.
Coverage: 1473 - 1700
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
English and other language books, pamphlets, broadsides and other ephemera published in the United Kingdom and the Americas.
Coverage: 1701 - 1820
Included are significant collections of women writers, collections on the French Revolution, numerous 18th century editions of the works of Shakespeare, and multiple editions of other works of literature.
Eighteenth Century Journals
Collection covers all aspects of 18th century social, political and literary life.
Coverage: 1685 - 1815
Medieval Travel Writing
Manuscripts of European travel writing. Covers geography, exploration, trade, literature.
Coverage: 13th - 16th centuries
Nineteenth Century British Pamphlets
Nine pamphlet collections covering various socio-political themes in Britain including Anti-slavery, universal suffrage, criminal punishment, and more.
Coverage: 1545 - 1931
Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection; Hume Tracts; Bristol Selected Pamphlets; Cowen Tracts; Earl Grey Pamphlets; Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Knowsley Pamphlets; LSE Selected Pamphlets, and Selections of the University of Manchester covering the Irish Question, Free Trade, and women's suffrage.
Perdita Manuscripts
These manuscripts were written or compiled by women in the British Isles. Find transcriptions and images of all manner of writing from account book entries, diaries, essays, hymns, and more
Coverage: 16th - 17th centuries

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