Research Guides: Early Modern English-Language Books: Web Resources

Early imprints online

The following resources are available to current VCU students, staff, and faculty, students. Other patrons with academic credentials may come to the desk at the library for guest access

Early English Books Online
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimiles of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 -- more than 125,000 titles.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Page by page digital images of every historically significant text published in 18th-century Great Britain and Colonial America, from books by well-known and lesser-known authors, to directories, Bibles, sheet music, sermons, and advertisements.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800
Books, pamphlets, broadsides, and other imprints published in 17th- and 18th-century America. Covers thousands of subjects in full-text.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819
Books, pamphlets, broadsides, and other imprints of early 19th-century America. Covers thousands of subjects in full-text.

English Short Title Catalogue

The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) is a union catalog of books printed primarily in the British Isles and North America, primarily in English, between 1473 and 1800. This tool is very useful for finding all known copies of a particular book, and links are provided to some content available online. The ESTC also offers the option to "Browse Libraries List" to see all of a library's reported holdings. Please note that not all libraries report holdings to ESTC.

Selected Online Resources

British Virginia
Based at VCU, British Virginia is a series of scholarly editions of documents touching on the colony.
Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
International database of 15th-century European printing.
Rare Book School Advance Reading Lists
Reading lists for the wide range of rare book courses taught at UVA's Rare Book School.
Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP)
Scholarly society for book historians.
Universal Short Title Catalogue
Collective database of all books published in Europe between the invention of printing and the end of the sixteenth century.