Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11

Dugdale, ThomasProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
819K words
Chapters
82

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographyLocal GazetteerArtifact ResearchIllustrated GuideTravel GuideEclectic ReadingFolk CustomsVictorian EraEnglish CountrysideCounty Descriptions

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11 by DugdaleAuthor: Dugdale, Thomas,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Sep 24, 2011

Editor's review

This eleven-volume work takes "curiosities" as its organizing thread, systematically surveying historical remains, local customs and anecdotes, the origins of place names, and regional legends across England and Wales. It is a typical product of the nineteenth-century British topographical writing tradition. Its value lies not in offering practical information of the kind found in today's travel guides, but in preserving a wealth of local memories and folk narratives that later generations could scarcely rediscover, allowing researchers to trace how a given place was imagined around the Victorian era. The work consists mainly of textual records, with entries arranged for lookup by place name, making it suitable as supplementary material for research in historical geography, folklore, and the background of English literature. It is best read as a reference library rather than as a book to read straight through; browsing at random often proves more rewarding than linear reading. Because it was compiled early, its historical judgments and wording bear the distinct mark of their time, and readers should maintain a critical awareness.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the general table of contents and the division of volumes to identify which regions each volume covers, then look up specific points of interest.
  2. Read alongside maps or modern place-name reference works to reduce the obstacles caused by differences between historical and modern place names.
  3. Take notes on entries about legends to facilitate later cross-checking against folklore scholarship.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
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  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
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  11. 11
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  50. 50
  51. 51
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  56. 56
  57. 57
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  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
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  73. 73
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FAQ

Is this set suitable for reading from beginning to end? Not really. The book is a compilation of local entries, and the volumes lack a continuous narrative thread, so reading straight through easily becomes tiring. A more effective approach is to treat it as a reference tool, browsing by place name or theme and following up on entries of interest with related historical sources.
Is the content still accurate today? Treat it with caution. The book was compiled in the nineteenth century, and some of its historical verification, place-name evolution, and population data have been corrected by later research; its wording also carries the biases of its time. It is best regarded as a primary document reflecting the state of knowledge of its day rather than as authoritative conclusion, and key information should be checked against modern scholarship.
What should be noted when reading the electronic edition? This edition is a public-domain electronic text, formatted mainly as plain text and lacking the original illustrations and layout information. When reading, it is advisable to use software that supports full-text search and to build your own place-name index so as to locate the desired entries quickly across eleven volumes.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Dugdale, Thomas Author

Thomas Dugdale is an English author about whom very little biographical information survives; his nationality, dates of birth and death, and educational background are all poorly documented in publicly available sources. What is known of his contribution centers on a multi-volume work titled Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated, of which one edition is held in this collection. Organized around the idea of "curiosities," the work describes the scenery, antiquities, and notable sites of England and Wales volume by volume, part geographical survey and part travel guide. Its text favors factual record and the gathering of anecdotes, reflecting the typical interests of nineteenth-century British local topography. With no biographical materials available, a detailed account of his life and circle is not possible; readers may instead approach this extensive work to appreciate the author's close attention to local landscapes and historic remains, and the role such compilations played in spreading knowledge of the nation's geography and culture.