17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers

The newspapers and pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media available anywhere. The 1,270-title collection includes a wide range of pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers from the period, covering more than 200 years of accounts from newspapers from England, Ireland, Scotland and a handful of papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia.

The original Burney volumes are now in fragile condition and have been restricted from ordinary reading room use. Until now, the only access to this unprecedented collection has been through microfilm. This digital collection, made possible by a partnership with the British Library, puts these early newspapers into the hands of scholars and researchers and is an invaluable research tool for all disciplines.

Specifically, historians interested in this period of U.K. history will find the cultural trends, political currents and social problems reflected in these newspapers — and their advertisements — especially useful as they give freshness and immediacy to historical events.

17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers totals nearly one million pages and includes:

• British Journal
• Daily Courant
• Daily Gazetteer
• Daily Post
• Dublin Gazette
• Evening Post
• General Advertiser
• Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle
• London Chronicle
• London Evening Post
• London Gazette
• Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser
• Spectator
• Tatler
• Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer
• And hundreds of others