Preface

Summary

The purpose of this handbook is to provide an up-to-date guide to the best of the voluminous literature on later eighteenth and early nineteenth century England. All subjects except strictly literary history and criticism are included; the selection has been made from a survey of all work published before 1 January 1981, with an occasional later book or article added. Much excellent material, old and new, has had to be omitted to keep the volume within the limit of about 2,500 entries and to create a useful rather than an exhaustive bibliography for students and non-specialists in the period. Towards these ends I have followed two principles: the omission of all but the most basic printed sources and the most indispensable secondary works included in entries 5 and 49 which provide exhaustive guides to the literature for the years 1760–89 published before 1950 and for the years between 1789 and 1837 published before 1970; and the exclusion of most books and articles on subjects beginning before 1837 but principally concerned with the early Victorian period which were included in Josef Altholz's Victorian England in this series.