Find Primary Texts in Tisch Library
Are you looking for a primary text either literary or scientific? Use the JumboSearch box to locate print and e-books in the library. You can also find digitized primary texts in library databases on this page.
18th-Century Scientific Texts in Tisch Library & Beyond
Following is a selection of some of the key 18th-Century scientific texts. Remember, this is only a sample, so use JumboSearch to find more or Ask a Librarian for help!
The Three Voyages of Edmond Halley in the Paramore, 1698-1701 by Call Number: G161 .H2 2ND SER.Edmond Halley was already a well-known astronomer, mathematician and natural philosopher when, in 1698, he took command of His Majesty's Ship Paramore. The purpose of Halley's first two voyages was to test his geomagnetical theories; in the third voyage he investigated tidal phenomena. In this book the journals of Halley's three voyages are published in full from manuscripts now in the British Library.Arithmetica Universalis by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1707Mathematics text that addresses algebraic notation, arithmetic, the relationship between geometry and algebra, and the solution of equations.An introduction to the doctrine of fluxions, and defence of the mathematicans against the objections of the author of the Analyst, so far as they are designed to affect their general methods of reasoning by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1736Bayes defends the logical foundation of Isaac Newton's calculus ("fluxions") against the criticism of George Berkeley, author of The Analyst.Experiments upon magnesia alba, quick-lime, and other alcaline substances by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1766-1797Black was a Scottish physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide.The history and present state of electricity, with original experiments by
Call Number: QC516 .P95 1966Publication Date: 1767The book provides a survey of the study of electricity up until 1766 as well as a description of Priestley's own experiments.First Lines of the Practice of Physic by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1777Cullen's most popular and successful work was this medical textbook, published in two volumes in 1777 and expanded with each edition until it reached four volumes in its final edition (1784). Also available in print in Hirsch Health Sciences Library Special Collections.On the parallax of the fixed stars; Catalogue of double stars by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1782Description of a lamp-micrometer; and investigation of magnifying powers read at the Royal Society December 6, 1781, and in January and March 1782.Experiments on Air by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1785The results of most of Henry Cavendish's important experiments, notably those on the properties of gases, electricity, and gravitation appeared in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society over a period of some forty years. A facsimile of the original edition is also available on microform in Tisch Library.
Zoonomia by Call Number: Tisch Special Collections QP29 .D2 pt. 2Publication Date: 1794-1796Written by the grandfather of Charles Darwin, this three-volume work contains a catalogue of diseases distributed into natural classes according to their proximate causes. Click the title to access the e-book.
18th-Century Literary and Philosophical Texts in Tisch Library
Following is a selection of 18th-Century literary texts in Tisch Library. Each of these texts is available both in print and as an e-book. Remember, this is only a sample, so use JumboSearch to find more or Ask a Librarian for help!
The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Call Number: DA501.M7 A48Publication Date: 1708-1762Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is one of the great eighteenth-century letter-writers. In this edition, her letters are edited in a complete text based on her manuscripts (most of which survive), accurately transcribed and fully annotated. Also available as an e-book.Secret memoirs and manners of several persons of quality of both sexes. From the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediterranean by
Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1709A political satire in which great liberties were taken with Whig party notables, leading to the author's arrest and questioning in preparation for a libel case against her.
Robinson Crusoe by Call Number: PR3403 .A1 1994Publication Date: 1719Story of a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before ultimately being rescued. This edition reprints all six authorized editions published by Taylor in 1719 to achieve a text that is faithful to Defoe's original edition. Also available as an e-book.
Love in Excess; Or, The Fatal Enquiry by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1719-1720This book touches on themes of education and marriage. Often classified as a work of amatory fiction, this novel is notable for its positive treatment of the "fallen woman."
Gulliver's Travels by Call Number: PR3724.G8 R58 2002Publication Date: 1726Swift's famous prose satire on human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. This edition is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations as well as selected criticism. Also available as an e-book.An Essay on Man by
Call Number: Tisch Special Collections [Ballou] PR3627 .A1 1821Publication Date: 1733-1734Concerned with the natural order God has decreed for man, Voltaire called it "the most beautiful, the most useful, the most sublime didactic poem ever written in any language." Also available in the book stacks and as an e-book.
21st-century Oxford Authors: Samuel Johnson by Call Number: PR3522 .W675 2018Publication Date: ca. 1747-1781This volume provides a generous selection of Johnson's most important writings, drawn from all periods of his life. It comprehensively reflects the range of literary forms in which Johnson wrote, including poetry, essays, criticism, and more.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by Call Number: B1480 2000Publication Date: 1748Widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature, Immanuel Kant points to it as the book that woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber." Also available as an e-book.
The Poems of William Cowper by Call Number: PR3380 .A2 1980Publication Date: 1748-1800This edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.
The Poetical Works of Christopher Smart by Call Number: PR3687.S7 A6 1980Publication Date: ca. 1763-1771This edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.The Vicar of Wakefield by
Call Number: PR3490 .A1 1974Publication Date: 1766Often described as a sentimental novel, which displays the belief in the innate goodness of human beings, this book can also be read as a satire on the sentimental novel and its values, as the vicar's values are apparently not compatible with the real "sinful" world. Also available as an e-book.
Evelina by Call Number: PR3316.A4 E8 1997bPublication Date: 1778Evelina is the unacknowledged but legitimate daughter of a dissipated English aristocrat. Raised in rural seclusion until her 17th year, she subsequently learns to navigate the complex layers of 18th-century society and earn the love of a distinguished nobleman. Also available as an e-book.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 1792This book is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. Also available in print: Tisch Book Stacks HQ1596 .W6 1967
The Botanic Garden by Call Number: PR3396 .A7 2017Publication Date: 1792Erasmus Darwin's epic poem aims to "enlist the Imagination under the banner of Science." Also available as an e-book.
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Call Number: PR5202 .M9 1970Publication Date: 1794Tells the story of orphan Emily St. Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the medieval castle of her aunt's new husband, Montoni. Also available as an e-book.
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by Call Number: PR4144 .S6 1991Publication Date: 1794The core of William Blake's vision, his greatness as one of the British Romantics, is most fully expressed in his Illuminated Books, masterworks of art and text intertwined and mutually enriching. Also available as an e-book.
Primary Texts in Library Databases & Research Guides
The resources in this section include a wide variety of primary sources such as original novels, poems, plays, short stories, and much more.
- Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineA comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which has aimed to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera. Subject categories include history and geography; fine arts and social sciences; medicine, science, and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; general reference. Also included are significant collections of women writers of the eighteenth century, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare. Where they add scholarly value or contain important differences, multiple editions of each individual work are offered.
- European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey CollectionOne of the most important literary discoveries of the second half of the twentieth century was the recovery of the spectacular library of more than 72,000 volumes, covering a broad range of subject areas, that was collected during the first half of the nineteenth century by Victor Amadeus, the Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenberg (17791834), and housed at his castle (Castle Corvey) near Paderborn, Germany. In real terms this collection contains over 2 million printed pages of English-language works, many of them comprising multiple volumes. The Corvey Collection thus constitutes one of the most important collections of British Romantic-era writing in existence anywhere. The extent of its scholarly significance is indicated, for instance, by the considerable number of exceedingly rare publicationsand even numerous previously unknown worksby British writers (and women writers in particular, whose works comprise over 1,000 of the titles) who were active during the Romantic period. In addition to this remarkable trove of English-language literary texts, Gale's Corvey Collection of European Literature also includes 3,658 works in French (including more than 500 by women) and 2,653 works in German, all of them dating primarily from the period 1790 to 1840.
- The Rise of Gothic Fiction in England & the United StatesCreated by Jennifer Ferguson, Team Lead for Arts & Humanities at Tisch Library, this resource includes links to digitized versions of important works of Gothic Fiction published in England and the United States from the Eighteenth to Early-Twentieth Centuries. The resource includes each author's most important contributions to the Gothic as well as bibliographies, contextual information, and much more.
- Women Writers OnlineA full-text collection of works written by women, in English or in English translation, before 1850.
- Slavery & Anti-Slavery: A Transnational ArchiveDigital primary source collection made up of four parts, Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; Part III: Institution of Slavery; Part IV: Age of Emancipation. Includes digitized books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, manuscripts, private papers, and letters touching on all aspects of historical slavery.
- Gale Primary SourcesGale Primary Sources combines a number of primary source collections in the humanities and social sciences to allow for research across several centuries and millions of pages of newspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs.