If you're just getting familiar with your topic, start with Reference sources, particularly the subject encyclopedias.
This is a selective list of reference books providing an overall background for British history. Additionally, see the European History research guide.
Encyclopedia of European Social History The Oxford Companion to British History (Online) A Dictionary of British History. Oxford The Oxford Companion to Black British History (Online) The Oxford Companion to Irish History (Online) The Oxford Companion to Scottish History(Online) The Kings and Queens of Britain (Online) Reader's guide to British history (print and online)
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Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia Tudor England : an encyclopedia Annual bibliography of Victorian studies Medieval England : an encyclopedia Twentieth-century Britain : an encyclopedia |
Thomas Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral |
The Victorian Web
Literature, painting, architecture, sculpture, book illustration, history, religion, though the sections on history and technology include hundreds of documents.
Historical Directories for England and Wales
A digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales, from 1760s to the 1910s. Essential tools for research into local and genealogical history.
Historical law dictionaries are valuable for their inclusion of then-contemporaneous terminology.
1739. A new law-dictionary: containing, the interpretation and definition of words and terms used in the law: and also the whole law, and the practice thereof, under all the heads and titles of the same. Giles Jacob.
Via Internet Archive
1743. The new law-dictionary: containing the definition of words and terms, and also the whole law, and practice thereof ... Carefully abridged ... Whereto is added a curious catalogue or register of the year-books and reports, with the times of their publication ... Giles Jacob.
Via Internet Archive
1811. The law-dictionary: explaining the rise, progress, and present state of the English law; defining and interpreting the terms or words of art; and comprising copious information on the subjects of law, trade, and government. Giles Jacob.
Via Internet Archive, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6