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Eighteenth-Century Studies: Online Resources: Electronic Books

This is a guide to both free web sites and electronic primary resources we have purchased or subscribe to on/about the long 18th century. Last updated 06-05-2023

Electronic Books

Encyclopedia of British History 1500-1980

A resource for British history students online.  More than 2,000 entries.  Use with caution.  Entries are not individually signed.

will publish new electronic titles that will use new technology to communicate results of scholarship.

HathiTrust Digital Library

HathiTrust was conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (The Big Ten in the Midwest) and the University of California system to establish a repository for these universities to archive and share their digitized collections.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the Internet's oldest producer of free electronic books (eBooks or etexts).  Work is done by hundreds of volunteers. Most of the Project Gutenberg eBooks are older literary works that are in the public domain in the United States. All may be freely downloaded and read, and redistributed for non-commercial use

AHA Guide to Historical Literature

Digital version of a print bibliography offering brief annotations of the best books about all periods of history and countries of the world as of the early 1990s.

Reference Works in British and American Literature

Classic bibliography of reference materials for British and American Literature. Paper copy in Remote Storage PR 83 .B74 1998.

Guide to Reference Main Z 1035 .G8 (latest ed. 1996)

Guide to Reference was used internationally as the “source of first resort” for identifying local materials that answer users’ questions, training reference staff, inventorying and developing reference collections, assisting interlibrary loan staff, and serving as a gateway to the wider repertory of the reference literature in all subject areas and disciplines.

Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson

This project, begun on the 17. November 2010, will attempt to create a digital and easily searchable version of the first edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Hopefully it will provide an interesting and useful resource to all those interested in 16th-18th century English literature (Spenser, Shakespeare, Locke, etc.), lexicographiles, lovers of quotations, visitors who land here by chance, etc. For this project, I am following the 2 volume first edition (published in 1755), specifically these three copies (the first two are available via library subscription; the third is a facsimile).

Microfilm Scan from the British Library: Johnson, Samuel. A dictionary of the English language; in which the words are deduced from their originals and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar. By Samuel Johnson, A. M. In two volumes. London, MDCCLV. [1755]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Gale Document #CB128752482. Access provided by Washington University in St. Louis.

Microfilm Scan from Kress Library of Business and Economics, Harvard University: Johnson, Samuel. A dictionary of the English language: in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar. London, 1755. 2 vols. The Making of the Modern World. Gale 2011. Gale, Cengage Learning. Gale Document #U109812327. Access provided by Washington University.

Facsimile: Johnson, Samuel. A dictionary of the English language: in which the words are deduced from their originals and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar. By Samuel Johnson, A. M. In two volumes. London, MDCCLV. [1755] AMS Press, INC. New York, 1967.

Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment 

Covering the "long" Enlightenment, from the rise of Descartes' disciples in 1670 to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1815, this encyclopedia contains 700 fully searchable articles. Coverage includes not only Western Europe but also North America, Brazil, and Iberian, Russian, Jewish, and Eastern European cultures.  Paper set in Reference B 802 .E53 2003 v. 1-3.