Research Guides: History 120: Britain since 1688: Find Books & Pamphlets

Freely-available collections

The following contain works in the public domain:

Google Books
Limit your search to "Full view only" or "Public Domain only" in order to find books that you can view cover-to-cover and/or download.
Hathi Trust
Digital collection of works held by a number of major research libraries.
Limit your search to "Full view only" to view works that you can view cover-to-cover.

Note about interlibrary loan

Rare and archival materials cannot be borrowed on interlibrary loan. You can sometimes locate microfilm or microfiche copies of these documents in the library catalog; to find microform copies of primary sources, enter your search terms and then apply a "subtype limit," choosing "Microform" as the format.

Sources in the Davidson Library Catalog

Using the Library Catalog's Advanced Search function, you can toggle source types under the Material Type menu.

Davidson Library Catalog: Book Search

Notable book & pamphlet collections

Archives Unbound
A multi-disciplinary resource, this is a set of collections that cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Particular strengths include U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies; and modern history.
Primary sources, unpublished historical documents from private and governmental collections.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
(1701-1800) Digital facsimiles of 185,000 books, pamphlets, almanacs, advertisements, songs, and other materials published in Great Britain and British North America during the eighteenth century.
Also available on Artemis.
Making of the Modern World
Covers the history of Western trade, the rise of the modern labor movement, the evolving status of slavery, the condition and making of the working class, and colonization, and the economic theories that championed and challenged capitalism.
Part of Gale Primary Sources.
Davidson College access includes Part I, The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection, 1450-1850 and Part II, 1851-1914
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
(c.1730-1916) Digital collection of primary sources from the long nineteenth century. The content is sourced from the world's preeminent libraries and archives. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages.
Contains the following collections: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture; European Literature, 1790-1840: The Covey Collection; Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest; Photography: The World Through the Lens; Science, Technology and Medicine, 1780-1925; Women: Transnational Networks.

Citation management

Access Zotero Zotero Guide

Ask Us

Research Assistance
Meet with library staff.
Library Chat
Chat with us online.

Contact Information