The sheer vastness and variety of the nineteenth-century press as an object of study make it both hugely exciting and, at times, more than a little overwhelming. Luckily, there are signposts to mark pathways through this still largely uncharted expanse. The resources gathered on this page direct researchers to background and reference information about the contents, contributors, and histories of nineteenth-century periodicals of all kinds.
Elsewhere on this site researchers will find additional direction and resources of various sorts: Victorian Periodicals Review’s Bibliography (published every four years); the VanArsdel Bibliography (1999-2010), the list of RSVP’s Colby Book Prize winners; our ongoing Digital Events; and The Curran Index.
The resources list below was compiled by Patrick Leary in 2024 with each item tagged to indicate whether it is:
- OA – open access
- IS – available by individual subscription
- PW – paywalled for all but institutional subscribers
This section of the RSVP website will be routinely updated as new resources appear and with your input. Please use our Share Your News/Tidbits form to let us know if you have additions (or if any links are broken).
Contents
Finding out about the contents of 19th-century periodicals
Full-Text Access
Open Access Nineteenth-Century Periodicals [OA]
British Newspaper Archive [IS]
Gale 19th-century UK Periodicals [PW]
Gale Times Digital Archive [PW]
ProQuest C19 [PW]
ProQuest British Periodicals [PW]
British Medical Journal Archive [OA]
The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine: Open-Access Index [OA]
Gale Economist Historical Archive [PW]
Gale Illustrated London News Archive [PW]
LSE Women’s Rights Collection: Journals [OA]
Masonic Periodicals Online [OA]
Nineteenth Century Serials Edition [OA]
Papers Past – New Zealand newspapers [OA]
Spiritualist, Occult, Reformist Periodicals [OA]
Subject Guides & Indices
Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature [OA]
Palmer’s Index to the Times of London [OA]
Cotgreave, A Contents-Subject Index, 1892 [OA]
Index to the Periodicals of 1890-1902 [OA]
ATCL: Index to short stories and serialized novels in Victorian periodicals [OA]
BLT19: 19th-Century British Labour, Trade, Temperance Periodicals [OA]
The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine: A Searchable Content Index [OA]
HBooks – History in the19thC Press [OA]
Price One Penny: Periodicals with Penny Fiction [OA]
Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical [OA]
Victorian Fiction Research Guides [OA]
Contributors
Finding out about contributors to 19th-century periodicals
Attribution
(Who wrote/drew this?)
Wellesley Index [PW] Volume I [OA] [Printed edition]
Curran Index [OA]
ATCL: Illustrators of Fiction [OA]
Athenaeum index [OA]
Authorship in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731-1868 [OA]
Cushing, Initials and Pseudonyms (1888) [OA]
Dickens Journals Online: Authors [OA]
Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry: authors, illustrators, translators [OA]
Periodical Poetry Index: Authors [OA]
Biographical Information About Contributors
Dictionary of National Biography [OA]
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [IS /PW]
Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism [PW] [Printed edition w/o updates]
Boase, Modern English Biography (6 vols.) [OA]
Alumni Oxonienses [OA]
Archives of the Royal Literary Fund [PW] [Microfilm edition]
Cambridge Alumni Database [OA]
Clergy of the Church of England (to 1835) [OA]
Crockford’s Clerical Directories, via Ancestry [PW]
Cross, Catalog of applicants to the Royal Literary Fund [OA]
Houfe, Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists [OA]
Men and Women of the Time, 1892 [OA]
Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles [IS]
Histories
Finding out about the histories of 19th-century periodicals
Wellesley Index (introductions) [PW] [Printed edition]
Waterloo Directory [PW]
Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism [PW] [Printed edition w/o updates]
Van Arsdel Bibliography section, “Histories” [OA]
Altick, 19th-century periodicals at the Newberry (1952) [OA]
Baillet, Gall and Wormwood, The Compositors Chronicle (1840-43) [OA]
Escott, Masters of English Journalism (1911) [OA]
Everett, The Party of Humanity (Fortnightly Review) (1939) [OA]
Fox Bourne, English Newspapers (1887) [OA]
Hobbs, A Fleet Street in Every Town (2018) [OA]
Hughes, On New Monthly Magazines, 1859-60 [OA]
Jackson, The Pictorial Press (1885) [OA]
John Francis, Publisher of the Athenaeum (1888) [OA]
Jones, On the Publication of Dark Blue [OA]
Kitchin, The London Times under…Moberley Bell (1925) [OA]
Leary, A Brief History of the Illustrated London News [OA]
Leary, A Victorian Virtual Community (Notes & Queries) [OA]
Mahoney, On the Ceylon National Review [OA]
Massingham, The London Daily Press (1892) [OA]
May, List of London Newspapers (1869) [OA]
Mitchell, Newspaper Press Directory (1846) [OA] [other years, print only]