Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection

The newspapers, pamphlets, and books gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney represent the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media, covering 1604-1804.

It totals almost 1 million pages and contains approximately 1,270 titles.

The collection helps researchers chart the development of the newspaper, beginning with irregularly published transcriptions of Parliamentary debates and proclamations, to coffee house newsbooks, and arriving at newspaper in its current form.

The Burney collection was digitized as a counterpart and partner to the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection, covering 1672-1737, also available via the University Library. Important collections in their own right, together they represent a wide range of titles from the era, with the Nichols collection filling in some gaps in the Burney material. Together, they are an invaluable and unequalled primary resource for this era.

Use the database’s Learning Center to gain context and background information as well as help about how to search the collection.

Click on the light bulb icon on the homepage menu to find help to conceptualize your research question; find primary source documents; read, understand, and evaluate what you find; and use and incorporate documents into your research.