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159 results
Bill of Sale from Henry Walker to William Shakespeare, 1613
This deed of bargain and sale, dated March 10, 1613, records William Shakespeare's purchase of a gatehouse in the Blackfriars district of London, from Henry Walker, citizen and minstrel of London. Shakespeare paid £80 of the £140 selling price up front, and on the day after the conveyance he mortgaged the remaining £60 back to Walker. William Johnson, citizen and vintner of London, and John Jackson and John Heminge, gentlemen, acted as trustees in Shakespeare's interest. They also were in charge of the sale of the property following ...
Contributed by
Folger Shakespeare Library
The First Folio of Shakespeare
Printed in the large “folio” size, the First Folio is the first collected edition of the plays of William Shakespeare. It was put together after his death in 1616 by two fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, and was published in 1623. The book contains the complete text of 36 of Shakespeare’s plays. The principal publishers were Edward Blount (1565–1632), a London bookseller and publisher, and Isaac Jaggard (died 1627), son of William Jaggard (circa 1568–1623), a printer and publisher long associated with Shakespeare, who died ...
Contributed by
Folger Shakespeare Library
Titus Andronicus
This 1594 copy of Titus Andronicus is the only known copy of this quarto in existence, and, along with a version of Henry VI, Part 2 from the same year, is the earliest extant printed Shakespeare play. Quartos printed after about 1598 often display the name William Shakespeare; as this is an earlier quarto, the name of the acting company is shown instead. Quarto editions of the plays, which began to appear in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, were inexpensive and were sold unbound, sometimes in small numbers ...
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Folger Shakespeare Library
Trevelyon Miscellany, 1608
Thomas Trevilian, or Trevelyon, a London craftsman of whom little is known, created his miscellany in 1608 when he was about the age of 60. The bulky manuscript of 290 double-sided folios contains texts and images appropriated from books, woodcuts, and engravings of his day. Part one of the manuscript (leaves 3–36) consists of historical and practical information: a time line; an illustrated calendar; moralizing proverbs; a series of computational tables and astronomical diagrams; lists of families linked to William the Conqueror; distances between London and cities around the ...
Contributed by
Folger Shakespeare Library
Final Concord Between William Shakespeare and Hercules Underhill
The final concord between William Shakespeare and Hercules Underhill is the confirming title to Shakespeare's New Place house in Stratford-upon-Avon, signed Michaelmas 1602. Shakespeare originally purchased New Place in May 1597 from William Underhill. Underhill was poisoned two months later by Fulke Underhill, his oldest son and heir, who was hanged for the crime in 1599. When Hercules Underhill, Fulke's younger brother, came of age, Shakespeare protected his title to New Place by paying him to reconfirm the purchase. As was the custom, three copies of the final ...
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Folger Shakespeare Library
A Summary View of the Rights of British America: Set Forth in Some Resolutions Intended for the Inspection of the Present Delegates of the People of Virginia, Now in Convention / by a Native, and Member of the House of Burgesses
This pamphlet is Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which he originally drafted in July 1774 as a set of instructions for the Virginia delegates to the first Continental Congress. Jefferson argued that the British Parliament had no rights to govern the colonies, which he claimed had been independent since their founding. He also described the usurpations of power and deviations from law committed by King George III and Parliament. Jefferson was not present in the Virginia House when his draft ...
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Library of Congress
The Book of Urizen
The poet and artist William Blake was born in London in 1757. He was apprenticed to an engraver and studied drawing at the Royal Academy. In 1783 he published his first book of poetry, Poetical Sketches. Blake was a religious mystic who eschewed the traditional teaching of the Christian churches to invent his own doctrines and symbols, which he drew from classical and Celtic mythology and many other sources. This printing of The Book of Urizen from the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress introduces a figure, Urizen, whom ...
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Library of Congress
World Chronicle with the Descent of the Kings of England from Adam and Eve to Richard III
This manuscript, produced in London around 1500, traces the genealogy of the kings of England from Adam and Eve to Richard III. The manuscript was made in the manner of William Caxton (circa 1422–92), the first English printer. Written in English, on vellum, the volume still has its original brown calf binding. Illustrations are mostly large compositions in pen and ink and include images of the Last Judgment and the fall of the rebel angels, the Creation, the fall of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s ark. Also included ...
Contributed by
Irish College in Paris
Memoirs of the Revolution in Bengal, Anno Domini 1757
This work by William Watts (active 1737-58) is an account of the Battle of Plassey, which took place on June 23, 1757, near the village of Pâlāshir, some 150 kilometers north of Calcutta (present-day Kolkata). In this decisive encounter, the forces of the British East India Company, under Robert Clive, defeated Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The British victory and the treaty with the Moghul Empire that ensued brought the province of Bengal and its great wealth under the control of the company, thereby establishing the ...
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Library of Congress
A Voyage to the East Indies: Containing Authentic Accounts of the Mogul Government in General, the Viceroyalties of the Decan and Bengal, with Their Several Subordinate Dependencies
This two-volume work is the third edition of a book first published as a single volume in 1757, expanded to two volumes in 1766, and republished in 1772. The author, John Henry Grose (active 1750-83), was born in England and went to Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in March 1750, to work as a servant and writer for the British East India Company. The book contains Grose’s descriptions of 18th-century India, including his account of the war of 1756-63, in which the British East India Company largely eliminated France as a ...
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Library of Congress
Bhotan and the Story of the Dooar War
The Dooar (or Duār) War of 1864-65 began as an attempt by the authorities in British India to annex from Bhutan the territory known as Duārs in order to stop what they claimed were incursions into India from Bhutan. David Field Rennie, who participated in the conflict as a military surgeon, wrote this book on his four-month voyage back to England. Bhutan, which is located at the eastern end of the Himalaya mountain range, was at that time one of the world’s most isolated countries. Rennie’s intention was ...
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Library of Congress
Burma Under British Rule
Joseph Dautremer was a French scholar specializing in Asian languages who served for a time as the French consul in Rangoon, the capital of British Burma. Burma Under British Rule is a detailed study of Burma, with chapters devoted to the history, people, physical geography, economy, and international trade of the country. A brief concluding chapter deals with the Andaman Islands, where the British maintained a penal colony. Originally published in Paris in 1912, Dautremer’s book was translated from the French into English by Sir (James) George Scott (1851 ...
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Library of Congress
A Narrative of the Mission Sent by the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava in 1855, with Notices of the Country, Government, and People
In December 1852, at the conclusion of the second Anglo-Burmese War, the British annexed the southern and coastal regions of Burma (known as Lower Burma). Pagan Min, and later his brother Mindon Min, continued to rule Upper Burma. In 1855, Arthur Phayre, the British commissioner for the annexed territories, visited the court of Ava in Upper Burma as part of an effort to improve relations with Mindon. Henry Yule was secretary to Phayre and accompanied him on the mission. This work, written by Yule, is a modified version of the ...
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Library of Congress
The Colonization of Indochina
La colonisation de l’Indo-Chine: L’Expérience anglaise (The colonization of Indochina: the English experience) is an 1892 case study of the British colonial experience in Asia and its lessons for France in the administration of French Indochina (present-day Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). The author, influential French essayist and colonial theorist Joseph Chailley-Bert (1854–1928), was a passionate advocate of reforming France’s colonization practices and governing strategies, which he argued were deficient in both design and execution, and of the need to draw upon the successful experiences of the ...
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Library of Congress
The Province of Burma; A Report Prepared on Behalf of the University of Chicago
Alleyne Ireland (1871–1951) was a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in London who, in 1901, was appointed by the University of Chicago to head a commission to study colonial administration in the Far East. Ireland’s first major project, published in 1907, was this exhaustive, two-volume study of Burma, at the time under British rule as a province of the Indian Empire. Volume one contains a general description of Burma, a history of Britain’s acquisition of the colony, and chapters on the people, government, general administration, civil ...
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Library of Congress
Respect for Human Dignity: an Inaugural Address
This pamphlet contains the text of the speech given by Nigerian independence leader Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-96) on the day he became the first indigenous governor-general of Nigeria and the first Nigerian to be named to the Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth II. Nigeria became an independent state within the British Commonwealth on October 1, 1960. In the speech, Azikiwe discusses the changed role of the governor-general as a result of independence and, as in many of his speeches and writings from the period, the importance of the rule of law ...
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Library of Congress
A New, Authentic, and Complete Collection of Voyages Round the World: Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority, Containing a New, Authentic, Entertaining, Instructive, Full, and Complete Historical Account of Captain Cook's First, Second, Third, and Last Voyages, Undertaken by Order of His Present Majesty
This compilation of British navigators' accounts of their voyages around the world covers the famous voyages of Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook, as well as expeditions by George Anson, John Byron, Samuel Wallis and Philip Carteret, and Constantine Phipps (Lord Mulgrave). In 1740-44, Anson led a three-year-and-nine-month mission that raided Spanish commerce off the coast of Peru before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope. Byron made a voyage in 1764-65, during which he discovered the Islands of Disappointment (in present-day French Polynesia) and several smaller ...
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Library of Congress
Royal Farewell to the Imperial Yeomanry: the Prince of Wales Shaking Hands with the Officers
This wash drawing on paper, mounted on board, is by Henry Marriott Paget (1856-1936), who created it for the British illustrated weekly newspaper, the Graphic, where it appeared on February 3, 1900. The drawing shows Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII), saying farewell to the soldiers of the Imperial Yeomanry, a volunteer cavalry regiment established to fight in the Boer War. The first contingent of soldiers left for South Africa in February 1900. Paget was one of three brothers–Henry, Sidney Edward (1860-1908), and Walter ...
Contributed by
Brown University Library
England Plate 2nd
This unsigned wash drawing is presumed to be the original by William Hogarth (1697-1764) for the etched plate, The Invasion, Plate 2, England. Hogarth was a major English pictorial satirist and social critic. He was also one of the first artists to draw subjects in a series. One of his best-known works is the series The Rake’s Progress, which shows the downfall of a young man of means who squanders his inheritance. The Invasion series, consisting of two plates, depicts the French plotting an invasion of England while the ...
Contributed by
Brown University Library
Soldiers on a March: "To Pack up Her Tatters and Follow the Drum"
This hand-colored etched caricature is by British caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1756?-1827). Rowlandson was trained as an artist in both England and France, but seems to have seen his profession as a way to make money rather than as an art form. As a result, he produced works that would sell – including pornographic images and illustrations of poems, as well as cartoons. Rowlandson produced his works by first drawing an image, then washing it with color, etching it on copper, having it engraved by a professional engraver, and then hand ...
Contributed by
Brown University Library
Britain Infantry Uniform Sketch (Rutland Militia?)
This sketch is the 14th of 15 original unsigned pencil and ink drawings attributed to Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740-1812). De Loutherbourg, an English artist of French descent, painted many large scenes of English naval victories, including The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. This sketch includes drawings of a uniformed infantryman with a rifle, a head with a cap, and notes on uniform coloring. The uniform may be that of the Rutland Militia, a British regiment founded in 1759. De Loutherbourg sketched these soldiers during mock battles held at Warley ...
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Brown University Library