British and Commonwealth Literary Studies

Oxford: A Poem by Robert Montgomery. London: Whittaker & Co., 1831. From the British Poetry of the Romantic Period collection. Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

• British Authors Collection
  The collection contains autographs of prominent nineteenth and twentieth-century British and Commonwealth authors. It also includes some correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and an eighteenth-century commonplace book.
• British Poetry of the Romantic Period 1789 to 1839
  A collection of 1600 first or bibliographically significant early editions of poetry published in Britain from the French Revolution to the beginning of the Chartist Movement, selected to complement Stanford's already strong holdings of Romantic verse.
• Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls
  Original editions of over 8000 pulp novels, boys papers, and related paper materials dating from the 1850s into the 1910s; predominantly American but includes a substantial number of British materials from the late 19th century.
• Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays
  The collection includes volumes 1 - 100, with volumes 69, 70, and 72 missing. These plays were produced in the 19th century and include contemporary plays as well as productions of older works, e.g. Shakespeare. Each volume contains 15 plays. Information on each play includes author, when and where it was first produced, and other particulars, such as production notes. The set provides a remarkable overview of the drama available to the public in the 1800s.
• Sanitary Reform of London: The Working Collection of Sir Joseph Bazalgette
  A collection of some 4500 separate printed, typescript, and manuscript items that documents the history of the sanitary evolution of London from the 1840s to the early twentieth century.
• Temperance Collection
  A collection of 1400 separately published pamphlets and tracts, 320 books, newspapers, journals and conference reports.
• Victorian and Edwardian Novels for Children and Young Adults
  A collection of 450 illustrated novels produced from about 1860 to the First World War, devised as entertainments with cautionary moral lessons for working class children.
• Victorian Drama
  Stanford has several substantial collections of playscripts printed during the Victorian period.
• Victorian Verse
  A collection of 345 books of poetry from the Victorian period, representing the early, middle and late periods of Victoria's reign.