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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 we are marking of the ninetieth anniversary of the release of the Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps, which came out on 6 June 1935. Meanwhile, we are celebrating the addition of eight brand new newspaper titles, the updating of twelve of our existing titles, as we have added 150,950 brand new pages to The Archive in all over the last seven days.So read on to discover more about the release of The 39 Steps and to learn more about our new…

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,…

In the late 1930s a newcomer made her way onto British cinema screens: Princess Kouka. From Sudan, Princess Kouka, born Tahia Ibrahim Belal, had been spotted by film producer Walter Futter, who was determined for her to appear in his next film.Using newspapers from the time, we uncover the legacy of this largely forgotten film star, who travelled to Britain and impressed audiences across the country.‘A Notable Newcomer’On 18 December 1936 London’s Daily News reported on the impending arrival…

The aristocratic Mitford sisters – Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah – hit the headlines throughout their lifetimes, with tales of scandal and intrigue filling the pages of the press from the 1920s and beyond.Born to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney, alongside brother Thomas, the Mitford sisters often shocked society, whether it be through their political views, or their private lives.In this special blog, we shall unravel the remarkable stories of the six Mitford sisters,…

Mercedes Gleitze (1900-1981) was the first British woman to swim the English Channel, and the first person to swim the Straits of Gibraltar. In an amazing career that spanned the 1920s and 1930s, Mercedes captured the imagination of the British public and became a household name.Born to German parents in Brighton, Mercedes was one of three sisters. Skilled in languages, she moved to London where she worked as a secretary and stenographer. Whilst living in London she began swimming in…

A walk along Piccadilly in the black-out is one of the many queer experiences of this war. The once brilliant centre of London’s night life is now as dark as any forest, and indeed, like a forest, the darkness is full of rustlings and whisperings, of half-seen shapes, and of a sinister feeling of eager, but invisible, life.So began a Daily Herald article on blackout crime in London during the Second World War. With blackouts imposed across the United…

This week at The Archive we have added an amazing 322,444 brand new pages, with eight brand new titles joining us in all, from Scotland, England and the Caribbean. Meanwhile, we’ve made one million more newspapers free to view as part of our collection, which you can find out more about here.We’ve also made extensive updates to 23 our existing titles, so read on to find out more about all of our new and updated titles of the week, as well…

Long before Agatha Christie envisioned murder on the Orient Express, or before she wondered what might have taken place on the 4.50 from Paddington, murder, mystery and mayhem were already well established on the railways of Britain and beyond.The first victim of murder on British railways was 70-year-old Thomas Briggs. In this special blog, we will take a look at his story, as well as nine others sourced from the pages of our newspaper Archive, which tell the strange, the…

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…