Books and Pamphlets
Newspapers and Periodicals
Personal Papers
Government and Public Documents
Biographical and Genealogical Sources
Find Books, Journals, and Manuscripts
General / Reference

Browse an A-Z listing of full text periodicals the library has access to, as well as an A-Z listing of databases and collections included in our subscriptions.

Primary Source Materials

Gale Primary Sources (Foundation users only) - A single search interface for a suite of databases containing the full text of books, pamphlets, and newspapers, including:

o    17th & 18th Century Burney Newspapers Collection
o    British Library Newspapers
o    19th Century UK Periodicals
o    Eighteenth Century Collections Online
o    Nineteenth Century Collections Online
o    19th Century US Newspapers
o    Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926
o    The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926
o    The Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources
o    The Making of the Modern World
o    The Sunday Times Historical Archive
o    The Times Digital Archive
o    Archives Unbound
o    17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection
o    Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive

 

Books and Pamphlets

American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I (Foundation users only) - Full text of 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900.

American History, 1493-1945 (Foundation users only) - Over 60,000 primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, including correspondence, diaries, government documents, business records, books, pamphlets, newspapers, broadsides, photographs, artwork and maps. NOTE: our subscription only provides access to documents through 1859.

American History and Culture Online: Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to more than 29,000 works about the Americas, published around the world between 1500 and 1926.

American Pamphlets, Series I, 1820-1922: From the New-York Historical Society (Foundation users only) - Full text of more than 25,000 pamphlets from the collections of the New-York Historical Society.

America's Historical Imprints (Foundation users only) - a single search interface that includes American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I; American Pamphlets, Series I, 1820-1922; Early American Imprints, Series I (and supplements - see below); and Early American Imprints, Series II (and supplements - see below).

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639-1800) (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to more than 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published between 1639 and 1800.  Includes Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1670-1800, and Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society, 1652-1800.

Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to over 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published between 1801 and 1819.  Includes Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1801-1819 and Supplements 1 and 2 from the American Antiquarian Society, 1801-1819.

Early English Books Online (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to "virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700."

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to hundreds of thousands of works published in the U.K. and the Americas during the 18th century.

The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926 (Foundation users only) - includes pre-1926 treatises and similar monographs, sourced from the collections of the Yale, George Washington University, and Columbia law libraries, in the following areas: International Law; Comparative Law; Foreign Law; Roman Law; Islamic Law; Jewish Law; and Ancient Law.

The Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources, 1620-1926 (Foundation users only) - full-text access to published records of the American colonies, documents published by state constitutional conventions, state codes, city charters, law dictionaries, digests and more.

The Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources, Part II, 1763-1970 (Foundation users only) - A "fully-searchable digital archive of US state and territorial codes, municipal codes, and constitutional conventions and compilations."

The Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature (Foundation users only) - This collection follows the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth, providing full-text access to thousands of monographs, reports, correspondence, speeches, and surveys relating to international social, economic, and business history, as well as political science, technology, industrialization, and the birth of the modern corporation. Our subscription includes Part I (1450-1850), and Part II (1850-1914).

Nineteenth Century Collections Online (Foundation users only) - Library access includes British Politics and Society (includes papers of British statesmen, Home Office records, ordnance surveys, working class autobiographies, and other unique collections), and Science, Technology and Medicine, 1780-1925 ("more than 3.5 million pages of journals, books, reports, and personal documents to explore the rapid acceleration of scientific, technical, and medical knowledge").

Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice (Foundation users only) - Includes documents and collections covering the time period 1490-present, focusing on the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today. It "provides access to many thousands of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings and maps in high quality greyscale and colour. In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography."

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to more than 12,000 books and pamphlets, 170 newspaper and periodical titles, and 71 major manuscript collections (including the American Colonization Society Papers) dealing with the abolitionist movement, arguments for and against slavery, colonization, and other related topics.  Foundation access includes Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; Part III: The Institution of Slavery; and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.

Newspapers and Periodicals

17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to approximately 1,270 newspaper titles, pamphlets and broadsides published during the 17th and 18th centuries in the United Kingdom, mostly in London.  (Cross-searchable with 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, and 19th Century UK Periodicals in Gale's NewsVault interface.)

17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspaper Collection (Foundation users only) - features the newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and broadsheets that form the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian library in Oxford, UK. All 296 volumes of bound material, covering the period 1672-1737 are presented in digitized format here.

Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1835 (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to hundreds of unique and rare newspapers and periodicals published in English between ca. 1685 and 1835.  The Jefferson Library has access to sections I through V.

19th Century UK Periodicals (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to nearly 600 magazines, journals and other periodicals published in the United Kingdom during the 19th Century. Includes Series I: New Readerships and Series II: Empire.  (Cross-searchable with 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, and 19th Century U.S. Newspapers in Gale's NewsVault interface.)

19th Century United States Newspapers (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to a range of urban and rural newspapers published in the United States throughout the 19th century.  (Cross-searchable with 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, and 19th Century UK Periodicals in Gale's NewsVault interface.)

Access NewspaperARCHIVE - Millions of searchable newspaper pages from the 18th to the 20th centuries. [Note: the library no longer subscribes to this resource; please consult library staff for assistance.]

Accessible Archives (Foundation users only) - Many periodicals, newspapers, and other publications from the 18th-20th centuries, including the Virginia Gazette.

American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection (Foundation users only) - Contains more than 6,500 American historical periodical titles dating from 1693 to 1877.

American Periodicals Series Online (Foundation users only) - Search the full text of more than 1,000 American magazines and journals published between 1740 and 1900. 

America's Historical Newspapers (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to thousands of American newspapers from 1690-1900.

British Library Newspapers (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to dozens of national and regional newspapers published in the United Kingdom during the 19th Century.  (Cross-searchable with 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, and 19th Century UK Periodicals in Gale's NewsVault interface.)  Includes: Part I: 1800-1900, Part II: 1800-1900, Part III: 1741-1950, Part IV: 1732-1950, Part V: 1746-1950 (parts overlap in time period but each has a different selection of regional newspapers).

Chronicling America - Search the Library of Congress's full-text database of America's historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922, or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. 

Mercure de France (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to this literary and cultural periodical published in Paris between 1672 and 1810.

Sunday Times Digital Archive (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to the Sunday Times of London issues from 1822 to 2006.

Times Digital Archive (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to the Times of London for the years 1785 to 1985.

Virginia Chronicle - a historical archive of Virginia newspapers, providing free access to full text searching and digitized images of over a million newspaper pages. A catalog of newspaper titles is available here.

Personal Papers

Jefferson and Jefferson Family Papers

Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Includes volumes 1-36 (covering 1760 to March 1802) of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson published by Princeton University Press, and volumes 1-4 of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series.  Other volumes will become available as more material is digitized and new volumes are published.  Note: a free version of this resource is available through the Founders Online project.

Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606-1827 (Library of Congress) - Scanned black-and-white images of most documents in the Thomas Jefferson Papers collection at the Library of Congress. Transcriptions are provided for some documents.

Thomas Jefferson Papers (Massachusetts Historical Society) - Color images of selected documents in the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Papers at Massachusetts Historical Society, including a draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's Farm and Garden Books, a large collection of architectural drawings, and Jefferson's draft of Notes on the State of Virginia.  Full transcriptions are available for the Farm and Garden Books.

Thomas Jefferson Collection, 1773-1826 (Missouri History Museum) - Missouri owns approximately 890 Jefferson documents, many of which are now available through its digital archive.  Scans are in color.

Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1761-1931 (Swem Library, College of William and Mary) - Swem Library holds a collection of approximately 700 Jefferson letters and other documents, which have been digitized.   Digital versions are available through the Jefferson Project website.

*See also Researching Thomas Jefferson: Primary Sources

Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters - Search hundreds of quotes by and about Thomas Jefferson and read the letters of his extended family and friends.

Nicholas Philip Trist Papers, 1765-1903 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill holds a collection of approximately 6,000 documents from Nicholas Philip Trist, Thomas Jefferson's grandson-in-law and personal secretary, and his extended family.  Large portions of this collection have now been digitized.

Papers of Others

American History Collection (Foundation users only) - Simultaneously search the digital papers collections of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Dolley and James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, the Diaries of Gouverneur Morris, the Pinckney-Horry Papers and Pinckney Statesmen Papers, Benjamin Rush, and George Washington, plus the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution and the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress Digital Edition (listed individually below). Our subscription also includes access the papers of Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Daniel Webster. A free version of this resource (including only the papers of the Adams family, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington) is available through the National Archives' Founders Online Project.  The American History Collection also includes access to the People of the Founding Era database and Founders Early Access project documents.

Adams Papers Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Includes all volumes of the Adams Papers published by Harvard University Press to date.  A free version of this resource is available through the Founders Online project.

Papers of Alexander Hamilton Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Includes all volumes of the print edition published by Columbia University Press.  A free version of this resource is available through the Founders Online project.

Papers of Andrew Jackson Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Includes all volumes of the print edition published by the University of Tennessee Press.

Selected Papers of John Jay Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Will ultimately include all seven volumes planned for the print edition.

Dolley Madison Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Search an ever-growing database of Dolley Madison's letters.

Papers of James Madison Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to all material published in the letterpress Papers of James Madison volumes through 2009.  A free version of this resource is available through the Founders Online project.

Papers of John Marshall Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to all twelve published volumes of the Papers of John Marshall, covering the years 1775 to 1835.

NEW Papers of James Monroe Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to the seven volumes currently published of the Selected Papers of James Monroe, covering the years 1776-1817, plus Monroe's presidential tours of 1817, 1818, and 1819.

Diaries of Gouverneur Morris Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - This digital edition includes an updated version of a 1939 edition of Morris’s Paris diaries, the newly transcribed and annotated 1794–1798 diaries about his European travels, and the 1799–1816 diaries he kept in New York.

Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen (Foundation users only) - This digital resource collects, for the first time, the papers of three of the most notable Pinckneys: brothers Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746–1825) and Thomas Pinckney (1750–1828) and their cousin Charles Pinckney (1757–1824). Eventually comprising over 3,000 documents, this publication is fully searchable and interoperable with the other titles in Rotunda’s American Founding Era collection and includes the complete contents of the previously released The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry.

Correspondence of James K. Polk Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - When complete, this digital edition of Polk’s correspondence will include the complete contents of the print edition’s fourteen volumes, covering 1817-1849.

NEW Letters of Benjamin Rush Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to the two published volumes of Rush's correspondence, spanning the years 1761-1813, as well as some supplementary material.

Papers of George Washington Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Includes all of the Papers of George Washington, published by the University Press of Virginia, to date.  A free version of this resource is available through the Founders Online project.

Papers of Daniel Webster Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - This digital edition of Webster’s papers contains the complete contents of the letterpress edition (including Correspondence, Legal Papers, Diplomatic Papers, and Speeches and Formal Writings, collectively spanning the years 1798 to 1852) and is fully searchable.

Revolutionary War and Early America: Collections from the Massachusetts Historical Society (1721-1860) (Foundation users only) - This module consists of 26 collections from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society which focus on the Colonial Era, the Revolutionary War and the Early National Period, with some collections extending into the Civil War era.  Most of the collections included are personal or family papers.

Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915: Plantation Records, Parts 1-4 (Foundation users only) - Full text of a wealth of business and personal papers documenting southern plantations, including ledger books, receipts, family correspondence, diaries, and wills, gathered from a number of different collections.

 

Government and Public Documents

Actes Royaux Français (French Royal Acts), 1256-1794 (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to approximately 16,000 pamphlets documenting the financial and political administration of France; nearly 75% of the pamphlets are from the 18th century.

Century of Lawmaking - U.S. Congressional documents and debates, 1774-1873

City and Business Directories: Virginia, 1801-1929 (Foundation users only) - A searchable database of Virginia residents and businesses covering the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including addresses, city and county officers, heads of families, firms and names of those doing business in the city, lists of city residents, occupations, and street directories.

Colonial America (Foundation users only) - This database makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822, and consisting of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies.  Our subscription provides access to Modules 1 through 5 (click here for details).

Colonial State Papers (Foundation users only) - "...provides access to thousands of papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries." Also includes a digital version of Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739.

The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to thousands of documents that trace the U.S. Constitution’s progress through each of the thirteen states’ conventions.  Includes the first twenty volumes of the print edition.

The First Federal Congress of the United States Digital Edition (Foundation users only) - full-text access to the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, including all volumes published to date.

Library of Congress Digital Collections - Formerly American Memory.  Users can now browse or search all digital collections, including the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Chronicling America digital newspaper collections.

Lost Records Localities Database

Slavery and the Law (Foundation users only) - Features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867.  The petitions come from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. This database also includes the important State Slavery Statutes collection, a comprehensive record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789-1865.

State Papers Online (Foundation users only) - online access to British government manuscripts from 1509 to 1782.  Our subscription includes:

• Part I: The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Domestic
• Part II: The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Foreign, Scotland, Borders, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
• Part III: The Stuarts and Commonwealth, James I - Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Domestic
• Part IV: The Stuarts and Commonwealth, James I - Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Foreign, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
• Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782, Part 1: State Papers Domestic, Military, Naval and Registers of the Privy Council
• Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782, Part 2: State Papers Foreign, Low Countries & Germany
• Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782, Part 3: State Papers Foreign, Western Europe
• Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782, Part 4: State Papers Foreign, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Turkey

Virginia Chancery Records Index

Virginia Company Archives (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to several collections of papers pertaining to the Virginia Company of London.

Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants

The War of 1812: Diplomacy on the High Seas (Foundation users only) - full-text access to thousands of U.S. State Department documents concerning the War of 1812.

The War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824 (Foundation users only) - full-text access to letters and attachments received by and letters sent to the War Department regarding Indian affairs between 1800 and 1824.

Biographical & Genealogical Sources

American National Biography (Foundation users only)

Ancestry Library Edition (Foundation users only)

AskART.com - Biography and directory on American artists

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Burned Jurisdiction Database

Dictionary of National Biography (Foundation users only) - Brief biographies of more than 56,000 people relevant to British history, provided by Oxford University Press.

HeritageQuest Online - [NOTE: we no longer subscribe to this database, but it is available through the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library if you have a local library card.]

Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts Craftsman Database

People of the Founding Era (Foundation users only) - a scholarly reference work that provides biographical information on over 25,000 people born between 1713 and 1815, drawn from the digitized papers of the Founding Fathers and other documentary editions of the founding era.

Social Networks and Archival Context - Find archival collections in libraries worldwide relating to historical persons.

Virginia Runaways (Virginia Center for Digital History) - Runaway slave advertisements from 18th-century Virginia newspapers

Virginia Untold - a searchable database provided by the Library of Virginia of documents relating to African Americans in Virginia

Find Books, Journals, and Manuscripts

ABC-CLIO ebooks (Foundation users only) - The Foundation currently has access to 12 titles in ABC-CLIO's collections, which are also searchable through the Thomas Jefferson Portal. Titles include:

• Cramer, Clayton E. Black Demographic Data, 1790-1860: A Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.
• Frank, Andrew, ed. American Revolution: People and Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
• Heglar, Charles J. Rethinking the Slave Narrative: Slave Marriage and the Narratives of Henry Bibb and William and Ellen Craft. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.
• Schmidt, Ethan A. Native Americans in the American Revolution: How the War Devastated, Divided, and Transformed the Early American Indian World. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014.
• Tannenbaum, Rebecca J. Health and Wellness in Colonial America. ABC-CLIO, 2012.
• Wass, Ann Buermann, and Michelle Webb Fandrich. Clothing Through American History: The Federal Era Through Antebellum, 1786-1860. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2010.

ACLS Humanities E-Book (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to over 4,000 titles in the humanities, selected by scholars.

America: History and Life with Full Text (Foundation users only) - Focusing on American history, this database provides access to selective indexing of over 1,800 journals from 1954 to the present, in addition to providing full-text access to nearly 290 journals and 80 books.

Archival Resources of the Virginias (ARVA) - Archival Resources of the Virginias (ARVAS) is a consolidated database which provides information about the vast array of manuscripts and archival materials housed in historical societies, libraries, museums, colleges and universities across Virginia and West Virginia. (Formerly Virginia Heritage.)

Art and Architecture Source (Foundation users only) - Provides access to over 600 full-text journals, more than 220 full-text books, and a collection of over 63,0000 images, covering a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design.

Artstor (Foundation users only) - A digital library including more than 1.9 million high-quality images for education and research from a wide variety of contributors around the world.

Bibliographic Database of the Conservation Information Network

Center for Research Libraries Online Catalog (Foundation users only) - The online public access catalog (OPAC) of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) based in Chicago, Illinois, which is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries that preserves and makes available to scholars a wealth of rare and uncommon primary source materials from around the world, that are generally not targeted by other North American research institutions. Collections include serials, newspapers, dissertations and digital resources.

Historical Abstracts with Full Text (Foundation users only) - This database provides full text access to more than 530 journals and 140 books, along with indexing of historical articles from more than 2,300 journals in over 40 languages.

Index to American Botanical Literature

JSTOR (Foundation users only) - Full-text access to back issues of hundreds of journals, including the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and the William & Mary Quarterly

National Archives - Access data and digitized records from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC), selected series from Access to Archival Databases (AAD), over one million electronic records from the Electronic Records Archives (ERA), all of the web pages from Archives.gov, and all of the web pages from the Presidential Libraries.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections

NEW ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global - Humanities & Social Sciences Collection (Foundation users only) - ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Global is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Each year hundreds of thousands of works are added. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.

Smithsonian Institution: Archival Manuscript and Photographic Catalog - descriptions of papers, oral history, manuscripts, images...

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Digital Library 

Virginia Newspaper Project - a catalog of Virginia newspapers.

General / Reference

Art & Architecture Thesaurus (Getty Foundation)

Bartleby.com - encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, reference works, King James Bible...

Chicago Manual of Style (Foundation users only)

NEW Digital Loeb Classical Library (Foundation users only) - More than 530 volumes of Latin, Greek, and English texts are available in a modern and elegant interface, allowing readers to browse, search, bookmark, annotate, and share content with ease.

Digital Public Library of America - a free portal to digitized materials in libraries and archives nationwide

Electronic Enlightenment (Foundation users only) "...unrivalled access to the web of correspondence between the greatest thinkers and writers of the long 18th century and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers."

Encyclopedia Mythica - a free encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legend

Find It Virginia - Search indexes and full text with your Virginia public library card

Great Buildings Online - digital images of 18th century American Architecture

Oxford Classical Dictionary (Foundation users only)

Oxford Companion to United States History (Foundation users only) - an encyclopedia with over 1,400 entries on various aspects of United States history by over 900 different scholars.

Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Foundation users only)

Oxford English Dictionary Online (Foundation users only) - The world's premier historical dictionary of the English Language.