Research Guides: English: Primary Sources

Primary Resources

A primary source is a work that was written [created] at a time that is contemporary or nearly contemporary with the period or subject being studied. Primary sources are the direct evidence or first hand accounts of historical events without secondary analysis or interpretation. Examples of primary sources include works of literature, diaries, letters, memos, photographs, records of organizations, articles written at the time about a particular event, and artifacts (works of art, buildings, furniture, clothing, toys, tools, etc.).

Primary Sources in the Humanities and Social Sciences

e-Collections

Scholars in the humanities have access to more and more primary source collections in digital format. UBC Library has purchased many of these collections and continues to expand its holdings in this area. For more e-collections, try searching adam matthew or alexander street press under Indexes and databases.

Eighteenth Century Journals: Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals c1685-1815
This Portal brings together rare journals printed between c1685 and 1815, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life.
Literary Manuscripts: 17th and 18th Century Poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds
This resource offers complete facsimile images of 190 manuscripts of 17th and 18th century verse held in the celebrated Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds.
Literary Manuscripts: Victorian Manuscripts from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of The New York Public Library
Manuscripts from a broad range of authors including Matthew Arnold, The Brontës, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature.
Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700
The manuscripts in this site were written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and they have been sourced from archives and libraries across the United Kingdom and the United States.
Defining gender, 1450-1910
The collection features 110 documents (books and periodicals) from the early modern period to the nineteenth century. Supporting material includes introductory essays, biographies, and chronologies. Key topics covered are: Conduct & Politeness, Domesticity & the Family, Consumption & Leisure, Education & Sensibility, and The Body.
British Literary Manuscripts
British Literary Manuscripts Online presents facsimile images of literary manuscripts, including letters and diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works, and similar materials.
Parker Library
The Parker Library's holdings of Old English texts account for a substantial proportion of all extant manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon, including the earliest copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (c. 890), unique copies of Old English poems and other texts, and King Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. The Parker Library also contains key Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts ranging from the Ancrene Wisse and the Brut Chronicle to one of the finest copies of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Other subjects represented in the collection are theology, music, medieval travelogues and maps, apocalypses, bestiaries, royal ceremonies, historical chronicles and Bibles.
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
Literary manuscripts,letters and other material by Wordsworth, Coleridge, de Quincey and others supplemented by selected annotated pages from printed books and images of the Lake District created by Gainsborough, Turner and others.
American antiquarian society (AAS) historical periodicals collection
Digitized images of more than 7600 American magazines and journals from the collection of the AAS. Comprises over over seven million pages published between 1691 and 1877.

Historical Newspapers

The Library has full text newspapers which provide researchers with quick access to historical newspaper articles. For a complete listing of newspaper holdings, see the guide: Newspapers and News Sources.