British & American Religion and Politics

The Rare Book Collection houses over 20,000 seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century English tracts, pamphlets, broadsides and ephemera. They are especially rich in works about English religious life and controversies. For example, more than 200 deal with the Popish Plot of 1678. Anonymous pamphlets on a variety of political topics now attributed to Daniel Defoe are also available. Selected pamphlets can be accessed online through the HathiTrust.

Guides to selected tracts include:

Five Views of An Age; A Selection of Late Seventeenth Century Pamphlets from Ellis Library’s Rare Book Room

English Dissent; Catalogue to an Exhibition of Eighteenth Century Pamphlets, 18 October to 18 November 1979 by Margaret A. Howell and Charles F. Mullett.

These materials are of particular interest to scholars of religious history and press freedom.

How to Use the Collection

With a few exceptions, the collections can be accessed and requested through the library catalog. Finding aids for individual collections are linked on this website. Materials are available for use in the Special Collections Reading Room (room 401) during regular hours. Materials do not circulate. 

Finding Aids for British & American Religion and Politics

Daniel Webster Speeches Collection, 1806-1932.

Scope and Contents The Daniel Webster Speeches Collection contains pamphlets of speeches made by and about Daniel Webster, for the most part…

Fourth of July Orations Collection.

The Fourth of July Orations Collection contains published pamphlets of addresses made on Independence Day from 1791-1925. The speeches explore topics…

John Tinney McCutcheon Collection of Editorial Cartoons.

Scope and Contents The majority of the items in this collection are original pen and ink cartoons drawn for theChicago Tribunefrom 1903 to 1944.…

Rare Books

The Rare Books Collection is the default designation for materials in Special Collections that are acquired as individual items. Like Special…

Walter Williams Library.

Historical Note Walter Williams (1864-1935) was President of the University of Missouri from 1930 – 1935 and served as Dean of the School of…

Selected Items

Daniel Webster at the tomb of Shakspeare [sic] [graphic] : designed expressly for 'Godey' / by Schuessele.

A defence of the dissertation on the eclipse mentioned by Phlegon : wherein is further shewn that that eclipse had no relation to the darkness which happened at our Saviour's Passion and Mr. Whiston's observations are particularly considered / by Arthur Ashley Sykes.

1776-1876, July 4th, City of New Haven, Centennial Celebration under direction of the Joint Special Committee of the City Council : for the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of American independence : programme.

Contents: Fourth of July parade. General order of the Chief Marshal ; Order of procession ; Programme of fireworks -- Grand centennial concert :…

Nixon's Cheshire prophecy at large : Publish'd from the Lady Cowper's correct copy, in the reign of Queen Anne : with historical and political remarks: and several instances wherein it is fulfilled : also his life / by John Oldmixon, Esq.

The terrors of God's judgments : a sermon preach'd at St. Peter's at Sandwich, on Sunday the 21st of February, 1713 : occasion'd by the late dreadful storm of wind, on Monday the 15th of February, 1713 / by Gerard De Gols, Rector.

32 pages ; 20 cm (8vo)

A sermon occasion'd by the total eclipse of the sun, upon April the 22nd, 1715 / Joseph Burroughs.

The second edition.

A sermon in two parts : God's judgment in the pestilence : preached at S. Paul's, Knightsbridge, thirteenth and fourteenth Sundays after Trinity, 1849 / by William J.E. Bennett.

36 pages ; 23 cm
Text on Psalm XCI, 5-7.
Publisher's advertisement on t.p. verso.

The speech of the Lord Haversham's ghost.

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