19th Century England

Books

The Uni High Library has a number of books on Queen Victoria and 19th century England in the 914.2, 941.081 and 942.08 - 942.081 call number areas. We also have useful reference books on British history in the R941.003 section. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Living, 19th Century R390 G856 v.5 is an excellent source for information on domestic, economic, intellectual, material, political, recreational, and religious life in Victorian England.

To find books in all campus libraries search the UIUC Online Catalog. Be sure to use the Library of Congress subject headings for your topic. The list of subject headings below is a great place to start and will direct you to information on everyday life in 19th century England. Do a Quick Search, copy and paste these headings into the search field and choose Subject Headings. Note: this list is not comprehensive!

If you are searching for information on another very specific topic, try preceding your topic term with the word Victorian in a Subject Heading or an Any Word Anywhere search, e.g., Victorian architecture, Victorian gardens, Victorian painting, etc. When you find a useful book, click on other subject headings listed in the book record to find similar books.

Databases

Library Gateway
The Library Gateway defaults to an Easy Search. Click on More Options next to the Go button to select which sources you would like to search. Click on What am I Searching? to see a list of sources included in each category. The most beneficial searches for you would include Multi-Subject Resources, Arts & Humanities (includes history databases) and/or Books. Type your keywords in the box and click on the search button. Note the link to More Search Tips underneath the search box. You will retrieve results in the variety of sources you selected. Therefore, you can search many databases all at once!

Historical Abstracts
Identifies international articles and books on history since 1450, excluding the U.S. and Canada. The default is the Advanced Search page--use it wisely!

• Before entering search words, scroll down to the Limit your results section, and add the historical period you're looking for, around 1840-1900, or something more specific if you wish.
• Also notice the options for type of document, whether or not you would like peer-reviewed only results, full-text, etc. It is not necessary to check the full-text only option because the University may have the full text in another one of its databases, which you can get to by clicking on the Discover link.
• Finally, in the search box, add keywords related to your topic. England will most likely be one of your keywords, but remember that you do not need to add Victorian or 19th century because you have already specified this in your limits.
  • Use the and dropdown to combine keywords that must all appear in your results.
  • Use the or dropdown with synonyms, which means that any of the words may appear in your results.
  • Try to avoid using and and or together. Instead, you may combine searches by clicking on Search History/Alerts underneath the search boxes.
    • Use an asterisk * to truncate words. Instead of searching for gender roles, you may want to search for gender role*, so that you would find both the singular and plural.
    • Use a question mark ? as a wildcard to replace a single character. Search for wom?n instead of women to account for both singular and plural.

Project Muse searches recent full-text articles in over 150 journals. Click on the Article Search button to start your search. When using keywords, select "All fields except text" for narrower results. You can click on the Subject Headings of a relevant article to find more like it. Project Muse uses Library of Congress Subject Headings, so you may copy and paste the ones we've provided for you above and search that way as well--just be sure to select the "Subject Headings" drop-down box.

JSTOR searches back-filed full-text articles. Use the Advanced Search to limit to only articles. You may also choose to narrow your search by limiting to the History discipline, though others may be relevant. If searching in full-text retrieves too many results, try changing to abstract in the drop-down menu next to the search box. JSTOR does not have subject headings, so you must be creative in your selection of keywords--experiment with many variations for best results. .

Also consider the general periodical databases linked to from the Library's home page. Your best bets are Ebsco's Academic Search Premier and Infotrac's Academic OneFile.

Websites

The Librarians' Index to the Internet
This site links to librarian-recommended websites. Search with the terms “Victorian England” and “19th century England” to find sites on dime novels, highwaymen stories, and businesses of the time.

Try Google Scholar, which searches “open-to-the-free-web” peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

The Victorian Web
This Brown University site is a very comprehensive source for information on the political history, social history, philosophy, religion, science, technology, authors, gender matters, visual arts, theatre & popular entertainment, and genre & techniques of Victorian England.

Geffrye Museum
Take virtual tours of English gardens and interiors from 1600 to the present and practice designing your own Victorian-style room.

 

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Last modified October 31, 2008
Send comments and requests for further information to Frances Jacobson Harris
Copyright 2007, Board of Trustees, University of Illinois. All rights reserved.