Microforms

"This is a group of six indexes to 350 American Periodicals covering 17[28] to 1850. The index categories include: General Prose (essays, letters, autobiographies, biographies, reminiscences, etc.), Fiction, Poetry, Book Reviews, Songs, and Subjects (especially strong in names of persons and places; uses the Library of Congress Subject Headings)." -- from the University of Buffalo Libraries Microforms Profile of the Collection

Location: Stauffer Library Microforms - Microcard set (no call number; shelved on top of microfilm cabinets)

Guide: There is no guide to this collection. 

Indexes: 

• Prose: 143 of 143 cards
• Fiction: 40 of 40 cards
• Poetry: 290 cards of 290 cards in 2 boxes
• Book Reviews: 149 of 149 cards
• Songs: 11 of 11 cards
• Subjects: 441 of 441 cards in 2 boxes
• Total Cards: 1074

This is not a full-text source; many titles are available in the American Periodical Series (Queen's does not subscribe).

This collection reflects the combined efforts of Alfred William Pollard (1859-1944), Gilbert Richard Redgrave (1844-1941) and others to compile a short title catalogue of major works in English literature from the 1400 through to 1640.

Pollard was a bibliographer and scholar of English literature but, because a stammer barred him from teaching, he entered the printed books department of the British Museum (now the British Library) and eventually became a recognized authority in antiquarian works. Pollard edited several works by Chaucer, Shakespeare and other authors, and authored some primers on them, as well. He wrote for several journals devoted to bibliography and later joined the Bibliographical Society, becoming an Honorable Secretary. G. R. Redgrave was an architect, engineer, and art historian, in addition to being the Vice President of the Bibliographical Society.

A major undertaking the Society wished to pursue was the formation of a short title catalogue of the antiquarian books housed in the British Museum. Since many of the old titles were long and difficult to look up, the object with the catalogue was to have a manageable reference of the titles in simplified form. The Society could not reach an agreement on how to go about this project until January 21, 1918. During that afternoon, the Society's meeting defaulted to Pollard his paper, as it was the only one produced for the meeting. The paper outlined his proposal for the short title catalogue. Redgrave had done a considerable amount of preliminary work already but the project did not get underway until 1924 when Pollard took charge, with the assistance of Redgrave's funding. In January of 1927 (1926 on the title pages), A Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640 was published. Ironically, the running title of the catalogue was too long and complex for ease of access, such that it became known simply as the Short Title Catalogue. The work has been invaluable to literature scholars and historians ever since.

The microfilm renditions of the works named in the Short Title Catalogue consist of 2,052 reels representing all 26,500 titles listed, ranging from the first book published in English through to the age of Spenser and Shakespeare. In addition to several early editions of works by authors such as Chaucer and Malory, the collection also contains original versions of royal statutes and proclamations, military, legal, and Parliamentary documents, sermons and liturgies, biographies, the Book of Common Prayer and the King James translation of The Bible. -- Summary prepared with reference to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), the Short-title Catalogue (1926), and the ProQuest products overview of the collection

Location and Call Number: Stauffer Library Compact Shelving Microfilm STC-1

Guides: in Stauffer Library Reference

Z2002 .P77 1976 (short title catalogue)
Z2002 .U574 (cross index to reels)
Z2002 .W72t (guide)

Notes:

• Missing Reels: 270, 301, 344, 650, 757, & 955 (out of 2052 reels).
• The microfilm reels are marked with "STC-I".
• The original edition of A Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640 is available in Stauffer Library Books at Z2002.P7
• For titles published after 1641 and up to 1700, refer to the Wing Collection.
• Online access to the Pollard-Redgrave Collection via ProQuest's Early English Books Online

Donald Goddard Wing (1904-1972) of Yale University Library compiled titles for a continuation of Pollard and Redgrave's 1926 Short-title Catalgoue, which listed books in the British Museum (now the British Library) ranging from 1475-1640. Wing's 1945 Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of English Books Printed in Other Countries 1641-1700 is a three-volume catalogue he compiled for the Index Society. He identifies the work as differing from the original Pollard and Redgrave catalogue primarily as being accomplished by a single editor (himself), and warns that although it is a comprehensive list, approximately 10 percent of the books he listed were not examined personally and as a result some "ghosts" may exist in the listing. (A later publication from Wing's notes came years later, and was titled A Gallery of Ghosts; Books Published Between 1641-1700 Not Found in the Short-title Catalogue. -- Summary prepared with reference to the Short-title Catalogue (1945)

As with the Pollard and Redgrave Collection, the Wing Collection microfilms represent the fulltext renditions of over 50,000 titles found at the British Library. The works range from literature, to periodicals, public documents, songs, religious texts, and many other genres. The period covered spans from the Civil War to the reign of King William III. Since the collection spans six decades of the 17th century, it follows that some titles overlap with those found in the English Literary Periodicals and Early English Newspapers microfilm collections.

Location and Call Number: Stauffer Library Compact Shelving: Microfilm EEB

Guides: in Stauffer Library Reference:

Z2002 .W52 (short title catalogue)
Z2002 .E37 1990t (index)
Z2002 .W722t (cross index)

Notes

• Missing reels: 74, 236, 566, 817, 966, 989, 1057, 1058, 1059, 1072, 1087, 1088, & 1463 (out of 2612 reels).
• The microfilm reels are labelled with "EEB" and "STC-II".
• A Gallery of Ghosts: Books Published Between 1641-1700 Not Found in the Short Title Catalogue is available in Stauffer Reference at Z2002 .W5
• For titles published from 1475-1640, refer to the Pollard and Redgrave Collection.
• Online access to the Pollard-Redgrave Collection via ProQuest's Early English Books Online

This collection combines the newspaper collections of Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814; father of author Francis Burney) and John Nichols (1745-1826; printer and author). The collections were acquired by the British Library in 1818 and 1865, respectively. Burney's collection alone consisted of 700 volumes of titles ranging from 1603-1818, and when combined with Nichols' collection, it made for a comprehrensive set with extensive coverage of publishing during that two-century period.

"The importance of these newspapers as a significant record of the social, intellectual, and political history of Modern Europe and as a unique record of the development and diversity of the newspaper press, has become increasingly evident to scholars of the 20th century." -- from the Guide to the collection

Queen's University Library does not have the full microfilm collection, estimated at over 6,000 reels, but there is considerable overlap between titles listed in the collection Guide (Z6956 .G6 C68 1983 ref) and titles found in the Early English Books and English Literary Periodicals collections also available at Queen's. There also are electronic renditions of many titles available through the Eighteenth Century Collections Online database, as well as actual physical copies of print versions held in Queen's W.D. Jordan Special Collections Library.

The Library also subscribes to the database, 17th -18th Century Burney Collection Newpapers.

NOTE: Date ranges of the online and physical renditions of materials may not correspond to those of the reels.

Location and Call Number: Check Omni by title of newspaper or check the list of newspapers (see pdf at end of notes)..

Guide: Stauffer Library Reference at Z6956 .G6 C68 1983

Notes

The reels are not numbered in the index; rather, they are divided into 24 Units of various titles. In each unit, a title can span over several reels, or a single reel can cover several titles. Since a title may appear on a reel that is not part of the Early English Newspapers collection, other titles on the same multi-title reel in the index will not be on the given reel; therefore, each title should be looked up on its own in Omni. Additionally, there are 6 Miscellaneous reels designated Miscellaneous Reel A through to F. Queen's University Library does not have the 6 Miscellaneous reels that cover several dozen titles of short publications; however, some of the documents are available in other collections and can be found by searching in Omni. For a list of all titles on the Miscellaneous Reels, refer to Miscellaneous Reels list.

This collection consists of 341 literary periodicals published during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. In addition to their literary contents, the periodicals give insight to a wide variety of topics and to cultural life of those times. The most predominant type of literary magazine published was the literary review, with Memoirs of Literature, the Monthly Review, the Monthly Repository, and Cambridge University Magazine being among the better-known titles. Not all periodicals were reviews; some were highly specialised in one subject area or genre, while others included political magazines, satire, news, and women's publications. Some subjects covered in the collection include aesthetics, criticism, art, military affairs, social and economic issues, agriculture, religion, philosophy, science. Additionally, many of the important writers of the period are represented, e.g. Defoe, Steele, Addison, Swift, Fielding, Johnson, Burke, Smollett, Coleridge, George Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray, and Christina Rossetti.

Location and Call Number: Check Omni by title of periodical or view master list of available titles (see pdf at end of notes)

Guide: Stauffer Library Reference at Z692 .S5 U56 1981

Notes

• In the index, the reels are numbered from 001 to 969. However, in Omni and on the actual microfilm boxes themselves, groupings of reels are numbered in 3 or 4 different manners, such that less than a hundred reels actually show up with their designated number from the collection. For a sequential listing of the reels, based on information from the index, see the list of Reel Numbers. Titles in RED indicate missing reels.
• The index title is Accessing English literary periodicals: a guide to the microforms collection, with title, subject, editor and reel number indexes.
• the original collection contains 969 reels (we do not have complete collection)