The Centre is closely associated with Chawton House Library, which opened in July 2003 in the restored Elizabethan manor house that once belonged to Jane Austen's brother.
Dr Gillian Dow, Director of Research at Chawton House Library, is a Senior Lecturer at Southampton and a member of the Eighteenth-Century Studies group. The collection of some 9000 volumes of rare and unique works produced from 1600 to 1830 provides an important resource for the MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies and for postgraduate research. The Chawton House Library catalogue is now online and can be accessed via the website above. Both Chawton House Library and the disciplines in the School of Humanities offer regular research seminars on eighteenth-century topics and several conferences co-organized with the University throughout the year. Please see the Conferences page for further details on past and future conferences.
Useful links
- Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment
- Burney Collection of Newspapers - 17th and 18th Century
- Chawton House Library
- EEBO (Early English Books Online) - Long eighteenth century
- ECCO: Eighteenth-Century Collections Online Use Eighteenth-Century Collections Online to access the digital images of every page of 150,000 books published during the 18th Century. With full-text searching of approximately 26 million pages, the product allows researchers new methods of access to critical information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
- Hartley Library
- Internet Library of Early Journals
- Nineteenth century British Library newspapers Long eighteenth century
- Pickering & Chatto Chawton House Library Series
- Resource page for MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies
- South Coast Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Research Group
