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This week at The Archive we are marking St Patrick’s Day with the addition of five brand new Irish titles, and updates to 29 of our existing Irish titles, as we delve into a potential Oscar Wilde work, where all is not as it seems. Furthermore, in all, we’ve added 215,303 brand new pages to our collection, as The Archive continues to grow.So read on to discover more about our new and updated titles of the week, and also to read…

This week at The Archive we are delighted to welcome a brand new title from the sunny south coast, the Bournemouth Times and Directory, as we take a moment to remember the devastating Bournemouth Blitz. In all, over the last seven days, we’ve added 366,686 brand new pages to our collection, whilst we’ve updated 25 of our existing titles from across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.So, from Buckingham to Burnley, from Dingwall to Driffield, from Mid Sussex to Mid Ulster, read…

This week at The Archive we are delighted to welcome the ‘Organ of the Book Trade,’ the landmark publishing magazine The Bookseller to our collection. Spanning 150 years of book-related news, we have released over 400,000 brand new pages for this title, as we have added 403,183 brand new pages in all over the last seven days.So read on to discover all about our wonderful new title The Bookseller, as we start the month of December with a bang. Stay tuned also,…

On 1 December 1900 the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette reported on ‘The Death of Mr Oscar Wilde:’The Paris correspondent of the Dublin Evening Mail telegraphs that Mr Oscar Wilde died yesterday at three o’clock in the Latin Quartier. He had been suffering for some time. Two days ago he became unconscious. Six weeks ago he underwent an operation, which appeared to have been successful, but a complication which followed proved fatal.The death of the poet, playwright and novelist…

This week we are delighted to welcome 69,150 brand new pages to The Archive, with the addition of one very special brand new title from London. Meanwhile, we have updated twelve of our existing titles, with updates to our newspapers from Scotland, Wales and England, as well as to one our of special political titles.Meanwhile, this week marks 125 years since writer Oscar Wilde was released from prison, having been sentenced to two years’ hard labour for ‘gross indecency’ in 1895. So…

Described at the time in the pages of the Western Mail as ‘one of the most sensational events in the criminal annals of England,’ the arrest and prosecution of Oscar Wilde on charges of ‘gross indecency’ is a tragic chapter in LGBTQ history, and represents the wider persecution faced by the LGBTQ community at the time, as well as throughout the ensuing decades.Oscar Wilde | Illustrated London News | 27 February 1892In this special blog, we will explore how newspapers at the…

In March 1935 the seaside resort town of Bournemouth was shaken by a sensational murder. Retired architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, aged 67, was found dead at his home, Villa Madeira, on Manor Road. Accused of his murder were his younger wife Alma Rattenbury, and her lover, 18-year-old gardener George Stoner.This case would end in further tragedy, and in this special blog, using pages from the British Newspaper Archive, we explore how murder came to the genteel town of Bournemouth in the…

‘Disliking urban surroundings,’ Jane Austen ‘relied on the English countryside for her own happiness and for the background of her novels,’ so writes Wendy Hope in a 1975 Illustrated London News article. In this special blog, using pages taken from the British Newspaper Archive, we will explore the locations where celebrated novelist Jane Austen lived, wrote, and visited, and how they informed her novels.Want to learn more? Register now and explore The ArchiveIllustrated London News | 1 December 1975Bath – ‘A Determined…

This day marks the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death. During the last two centuries, Jane Austen has become a household name. Austen and her modest-sized collection of works has enjoyed a vibrant presence in both academia and western culture, from quotes on magnets and clothing to movie adaptations and sequels to her novels. Austen’s name is equally as at home in highbrow literary essays and criticism as it is in contemporary periodicals meant for mass consumption, such as the…

While researching A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England, author Sue Wilkes discovered an amazing romance which could have appeared in an Austen novel. We love hearing about what you’re finding in the newspapers. Tell us about your own discoveries in the comments section below. ************** Heiress Augusta Nicholson, a most intrepid young lady, showed great ingenuity when she fell in love with handsome John Giles, a penniless comedian.Miss Nicholson was a ward of chancery and would inherit £14,000 when she…