eighteenth-century history

Glam Rock to Georgian Riots: Bowie’s Last Notebook

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│By Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

If, like me, you frequently find yourself wondering what David Bowie would be up to if his time with us mortals hadn’t been so tragically short – last week we got some answers. The BBC reported that David Bowie spent his last months deep in research about eighteenth-century Britain.

The appeal of the eighteenth century is something we know a little about here at Gale Primary Sources, as publishers of Eighteenth Century Collections Online, the largest collection of digital primary sources emerging from that century which is shortly to receive a large additional module in the form of ECCO, Part III. So, of course, the first thing that I did after learning about Bowie’s interest in our favourite historical era was to set about looking for the sources he had been reading. I wanted to see if I could find what had captured his imagination and ECCO did not disappoint.

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Digitisation as a Catalyst for Conservation

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|By Margaux Lapierre, Digitisation Project Manager, British Library│

The digitisation of rare and historic materials not only makes these materials more accessible, it also supports preservation and cultural stewardship. For institutions like the British Library, where collections of printed heritage may be large and fragile, digitisation helps to safeguard materials while expanding their visibility and value in research, education, and public engagement.

Projects such as Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Part III (ECCO III), which will be released in March 2026, are a model for how digitisation and conservation complement and strengthen one another. They provide an illustration of how a library can protect the material integrity of its holdings and fulfil its mission to provide access to knowledge for as wide an audience as is possible.

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Leaving a Mark: Historical Graffiti

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│By Elizabeth Gaglio, Digital Product Trainer|

“What is it actually about?” the bookseller asks me as we scan the shelves in the British History section.

“Graffiti in the eighteenth century,” I say. 

Admittedly, it’s a topic I may have thought was out of place not long ago. Graffiti, by nature, is often thought of as impulsive and temporary; an expression of a moment, publicly written somewhere it doesn’t belong. How much can we really know about writing, marks, and art that have long since been washed away or painted over? 

In the book I’m looking for, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion, and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain, historian and author Madeline Pelling shares some specific examples of how “lost voices”, especially of those who were not otherwise published and preserved, can still be heard and seen today. The bookseller spots the book, aptly hidden in plain sight, and uses the ladder to bring it down to me. 

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Perfecting the Elevator Pitch: Using Gale Primary Sources to Unpack Intellectual History

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│By Sofía Sanabria de Felipe, Gale Ambassador at the University of Oxford│

With great power comes great responsibility. With being a doctoral researcher comes the ever-present question: what do you work on? As a response, you come up with an elevator pitch that somewhat does justice to your project. To do so, you find yourself using abstract terms like ‘universality’ and ‘contingency’, often leaving your audience none the wiser as to what exactly it is you do.

So, when Gale Primary Sources offered me the opportunity to write a blog post centred on my research, I decided to use their archives and digital humanities tools as a way of finally perfecting my elevator pitch.

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Fabricating History: Empire Lines, Modern Designs, and the Politics of Dress in Regency Representations

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│By Megan Harlow, Gale Ambassador at Durham University│

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Regency fashion has become a cultural touchstone, romanticised amid the contemporary resurgence of early nineteenth-century period dramas. The global reception of Bridgerton (2020–), alongside the proliferation of the ‘Regencycore’ aesthetic, exemplifies the symbiotic relationship between historical narrative engagement and a renewed preoccupation with sartorial historiography, positioning fashion as a dynamic site of aesthetic and ideological negotiation.

Yet, as screen portrayals negotiate between historical fidelity and modern sensibilities, they often obscure the constructed nature of costume, selectively resurrecting aspects of the past while neglecting the intricate social, political, and economic meanings embedded in dress. 

Drawing on Gale Primary Sources, this analysis interrogates how Regency fashion was originally represented and how its legacy is reshaped in adaptation. Ultimately, questioning what histories are made visible through costume, and what is strategically forgotten, highlighting the historiographical implications of fashion in contemporary media.

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An Eighteenth-Century Intersectional Feminist? Exploring the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Eighteenth Century Collections Online

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│By Leila Marhamati, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Maybe “Intersectional Feminist” is taking it a bit far, but Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) has certainly been described as a woman ahead of her time. Best known today for the correspondence she maintained while traveling with her husband through the Ottoman Empire from 1716 to 1718, Lady Mary was commonly on the fringes of and often at the forefront of major historical developments in Britain and the Western world. She provided startlingly positive views on non-Western cultures and scientific experimentation at a time when both were viewed with suspicion. And yet, she was still located within a society that embraced hierarchical institutions and systems of oppression.

Using Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), we can trace these many aspects of Lady Mary and, through them, glean insights into the eighteenth century as a whole. This post contains some documents from the forthcoming release Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Part III, available in March 2026.

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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection: Part II

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│By Clem Delany, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

In December 2024, Gale Primary Sources released part two of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection, sourced from the British Library. Adding to the original, previously digitised collection of Reverend Charles Burney are an additional 200-odd titles of newspapers, newsbooks, and broadsheets from across the period.

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Who was the Chevalier de Saint-Georges?

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│By Carolyn Beckford, Gale Product Trainer│

Joseph Boulogne, later adopted as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was born in Guadeloupe, a former French colony. He was a French violinist, conductor, composer, and a soldier.     

Boulogne was the first classical composer of African descent to attain widespread acclaim in European music. He composed an array of violin concertos, string quartets, sinfonia concertantes, violin duets, sonatas, symphonies, stage works, and opera comique. He was also a contemporary and rival of Mozart, although it’s likely that racism obscured his recognition as a great composer.

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Plans, Charts, Images and Drawings: Eighteenth Century Collections Online as a Source of Visual Information Transmission

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│By Sirkku Ruokkeinen, University of Turku, Finland│

In 1786, the Scottish economist William Playfair (1759–1823) published the Commercial and Political Atlas, reporting on the trade balance between England and continental Europe, West Indies, and North America. The work included something never before seen in print: line and bar charts. These statistical tools, although familiar to many of us now, are in fact quite complex devices and necessitate some understanding of their structure for a successful reading. So how were Playfair’s eighteenth century readers able to understand them?

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Uncovering a History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century

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│By Philip Virta, Senior Acquisitions Editor |

Disability studies is a growing field in academia that examines disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Seeing how far we have come as a society in terms of equal rights for people with disabilities is heartening, yet how has disability been viewed both historically and contemporarily?

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