19th Century England Research Guide

Reference Books

Need to pick a topic? Have no idea where to go next with your topic? Try these books first. All are located in the reference collection on the first floor of the Library.

Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era
Ref DA550 .E527 2004
The 1890's: an encyclopedia of British literature, art and culture
Ref DA 560 .A18 1993
Victorian Britain
Ref DA 550 .V53 1988
The London encyclopaedia
Ref DA 679 .L78 1986
The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World : a reader's companion to the people, places, events, and everyday life of the Victorian era
Ref DA 550 .E53 1996

Finding Books using the Library Catalogs

Information about this time period can be found in a number of ways. Try subject and keyword searches in our Library Catalog first. Other options include searching I-Share or WorldCat.
If you need to request books from other libraries, please allow 7-10 business days for delivery. Requests can be made online with a library card. This is a free service.

Sample subject search for Great Britain History
Sample subject search Great Britain History Victoria 1837 1901
Sample keyword search for Victorian and Women

Check out some Ebooks!

The C.O.D. Library has over 6000 ebooks inside the library catalog. You just search for your subject and see if there are any ebooks which you can view and read right from where you are sitting. Here are some that should be useful:

Daily life in Victorian England
Also in Print - DA533 .M675 2009
Family ties in Victorian England
Slumming: sexual and social politics in Victorian London
Men of blood: violence, manliness and criminal justice in Victorian England
Victorian London's middle-class housewife : what she did all day
Also in Print - HQ1600.L6 D73 2001
The revolution of the dons: Cambridge and society in Victorian England

Finding articles using Online Databases

Essays and articles can be found using our online databases such as Essay and General Literature Index, Academic OneFile, Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and Literature Resource Center.
Full-text articles are available, but most of the time these databases will only give you citations. The next step is to then do a search for that source in our Library Catalog. If we do not own the source that published it, we can get it for you. Call the Reference Desk or place your request online.

Finding articles using Print Indexes

Another source that you should try are the print indexes, such as the Art Index and Humanities Index. Indexes list articles and essays by topic. You will not actually see the article in these books. Using indexes is a two-step process. Find where it is published, and then find out if the Library owns that source. Remember, if we do not own the source that published it, we can get it for you. Place your request online with a library card.

Internet Sites

Victorian Web Sites
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Victorian.html
Victorian Web
http://www.victorianweb.org/
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
http://www.casebook.org/intro.html
All about Jack the Ripper, the most famous serial killer of all
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/ripper/index_1.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Darwinism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/darwinism/
The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
Victoriana.com, Study Center: Women's fashions,1825-1840
http://victoriana.com/lady/palmer.html
Victorian Dictionary
http://www.victorianlondon.org/
Voice of the Shuttle - Victorian
http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2751

Citing Sources

Need online help for citing those awesome sources you found? We've got it here. Remember, online sources, such as articles from databases and web sites, will require some extra steps in order to properly cite them.

Help with citing in MLA style

Jason Ertz, Assistant Professor and Librarian
(630) 942-3317
ertzja@cod.edu
Updated July 1, 2010

Print · ·

Save to del.icio.us