Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection

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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection

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Product Category: Gale Primary Sources

Series: Historical Newspapers

Pages: Over 155,000

Fact Sheet: View PDF

A unique source for building a picture of what was happening in politics, culture and society at this time, week-by-week, year-by-year.

John Nichols (1745–1826) was a printer and former Master of the Stationers’ Company, biographer of Hogarth and Swift, and writer of a county history of Leicestershire. He began collecting newspapers around 1778 through purchasing a large share in the Gentleman’s Magazine, who had provided Samuel Johnson with his first regular employment as a writer. Not only did he collect many more materials after this, he also made them available to scholars, a tradition continued by the Bodleian Library, and now Gale. The collection contains over 150,000 pages of printed text, spanning nearly 100 years of history.

Through a partnership with the Bodleian Library, Gale has digitally scanned each page of this collection, and with Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection brings these rare documents to scholars around the world in an easy-to-use, full-text searchable digital format.

Essential to the study of British history and culture in crucial periods, this collection features many rare news media resources, including:

Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal
Athenian Mercury
Flying Post or Postmaster
London Gazette
Mist’s Weekly Journal
Original Weekly Journal
Post Boy
Post Man or the Historical Account
Tatler

Highlights:

Full coverage of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, including James II’s General Pardon and calls for loyalty from his subjects, and the declaration of rebellion by the nobility, gentry and commonalty at Nottingham in November 1688
Coverage of the deaths of monarchs from Charles II to George I, as well as reports on the death of James II in France in 1701
Accounts of the movements of William of Orange and a final swift shift in loyalty from the writers of articles at William of Orange’s ascension, including a glowing report of William of Orange’s character from The Hague published after his gaining the throne as William III
Coverage of movements in international politics, such as reports on the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and Queen Anne’s speech to Parliament a few days before, on securing the Protestant succession
Issues of The Examiner, edited by Jonathan Swift, virulently supporting the new Tory ministry in 1710 and attacking the fallen Whig government. Seen side-by-side in this archive, follow the exchange between Swift and The Medley, a vehemently Whig paper begun by Arthur Maynwaring that showcases an important historical change and the development of print culture
The Female Tatler, the first known periodical with a female editor, and all four issues of The Ladies Mercury, an early example of a periodical aimed at women
Narratives of social change and morality, such as a series in The Weekly Packet titled ‘Against Duelling’, and the themes of issues of The Hermit, including ‘Liberty of Printing’, ‘Rebellion and Regicide’ and ‘Inhumane Treatment of the Blacks’
Jacobite newspapers such as The Weekly Journal and its later incarnations as Mist’s Weekly Journal and Fog’s Weekly Journal

Look Inside

Additional Details

subjects covered

Western European Studies
Gender & Women's Studies
Humanities & Social Sciences
Literature

Support Materials

View and download these PDFs

Essays from Nichols Collection

Platform Features & Tools

Term Frequency

It allows researchers to see the frequency of search terms within content sets to identify central themes and assess how people, places, events and ideas interact and develop over time.

Buscador de temas

Esta herramienta agrupa los temas más comunes y revela conexiones ocultas entre los términos de búsqueda, lo que ayuda a dar forma a la investigación integrando contenidos diversos con información relevante.

Búsquedas simultáneas

Busca al mismo tiempo dentro de los productos complementarios de fuentes primarias, incluidos los ebooks, a través de un entorno de búsqueda unificado que posibilita nuevas e innovadoras conexiones de investigación.