Electronic Texts
Scanned and edited by Jack Lynch
I’ve been scanning and editing electronic texts since the early 1990s. They’re mostly for use in my classes, using the good-enough standard rather than the carefully-prepared-critical-edition standard. Since I’ve been preparing these over the course of decades, they range widely in quality, though as I use old texts in the classroom I try to clean them up and get them to the standard I aspire to today. Comments and corrections are welcome.
- Miscellaneous:
- Anonymous:
- Joseph Addison (1672–1719), English essayist and poet, and Sir Richard Steele (1671–1729), English essayist and playwright:
- Ælfric (c. 955–c. 1010), abbot and writer:
- Colloquy (short selection in Old English)
- Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Greek philosopher, critic, and scientist:
- Mary Astell (1666–1731), English feminist:
- John Aubrey (1626–1697), English biographer:
- Jane Austen (1775–1817), English novelist:
- Francis Bacon (1561–1626), English philosopher and statesman:
- Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825), English writer and educator:
- John Barbour (1320–95), Scottish poet:
- William Beckford (1760–1844), English novelist:
- Aphra Behn (1640–89), English novelist, playwright, and poet:
- Richard Bentley (1662–1742), English scholar:
- George Berkeley (1685–1753), Irish philosopher:
- Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?), American writer:
- James Boswell (1740–95), Scottish biographer:
- John Breval (c. 1680–1738), English writer:
- Edmund Burke (1729–97), Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher:
- Frances Burney (1752–1840), English novelist and diarist:
- Byron, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), English poet:
- Cædmon (late seventh century), English poet:
- Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623–73), English philosopher, poet, scientist, and miscellaneous writer:
- Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), English poet:
- The Canterbury Tales (late fourteenth century):
- Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932), American essayist and fiction writer:
- Mary, Lady Chudleigh (1656–1710), English poet and proto-feminist:
- John Cleland (1709–89), Englis pornographer:
- Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (a.k.a. Fanny Hill) (1759):
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), English poet:
- Peter Coulse:
- William Davenant (1606–68), English poet and playwright, and John Dryden (1631–1700), English poet and playwright:
- Daniel Defoe (c. 1660–1731), English novelist and journalist:
- Olympe de Gouges (1748–93), French feminist:
- Sir John Denham (c. 1614–1669), Anglo-Irish poet:
- Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859), English writer and drug addict:
- Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821):
- John Donne (1572–1631), English poet and clergyman:
- John Dryden (1631–1700), English poet and playwright:
- John Dyer (1699–1757), Welsh poet and clergyman:
- Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797), African (or African American?) abolitionish:
- Henry Fielding (1707–54), English playwright and novelist:
- Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661–1720), English poet:
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935), American writer and social reformer:
- William Godwin (1756–1836), English political philosopher and novelist, husband to Mary Wollstonecraft and father to Mary Shelley:
- Thomas Gray (1716–91), English poet:
- John Gregory (1724–1773), Scottish writer and moralist:
- A Father’s Legacy to His Daughters (wr. 1761, pub. 1774):
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64), American fiction writer:
- Eliza Haywood (c. 1693–1756), English actress and writer:
- George Herbert (1593–1633), English poet and priest:
- Robert Herrick (1591–1674), English poet:
- William Hogarth (1697–1764), English painter and engraver:
I made some of the first scans of Hogarth prints available on the Web, way back in the nineties. They’ve long since been superseded by much better versions, easily found, but I keep my old ones around for continuity.
- Horace (65 BCE–8 BCE), Roman poet:
- David Hume (1711–76), Scottish philosopher and historian:
- William Henry Ireland (1775–1835), English forger and charlatan:
- Samuel Johnson (1709–84), English writer and critic:
- Charles Lamb (1775–1834), English essayist and poet:
- The Adventures of Ulysses:
- William Langland (c. 1332?–c. 1386?), English poet:
- Piers Plowman (late fourteenth century), Prologue (in Middle English)
- Matthew Lewis (1775–1818), English Gothic novelist and playwright:
- John Locke (1632–1704), English philosopher and doctor:
- H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), English writer of horror:
- Richard Lovelace (1617–57), English poet:
- John Lyly (c. 1553–1606), English writer:
- Henry Mackenzie (1745–1831), Scottish lawyer and sentimental novelist:
- James Macpherson (1736–96), Scottish poet and forger:
- Thomas Malory (d. c. 1470?), English writer:
- “Syr Launcelot du Lake,” book 6 of Le Morte d’Arthur (wr. c. 1470, pub. 1485), in parallel columns of late Middle English and my modern translation
- Bernard Mandeville (1670–1744), Dutch-English philosopher and poet:
- Christopher Marlowe (1564–93), English playwright and poet:
- John Milton (1608–74), English poet and radical:
- Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), English writer and critic:
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), English poet:
- Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), English bureaucrat and diarist:
- Phillis Wheatley Peters (1753–84), African American poet:
- Katherine Philips (1631–64), Welsh-English poet:
- Hester Thrale Piozzi (1740?–1821), Welsh writer and diarist:
- Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49), American writer:
- John Polidori (1795–1821), English writer and doctor:
- Alexander Pope (1688–1744), English poet:
- Plutarch (c. 46 CE–after 119 CE), Greek philosopher, biographer, and historian:
- “Alexander” (abridged to about 40% of its original length)
- Walter Ralegh or Raleigh (c. 1552–1618), English statesman and poet:
- Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), English printer and novelist:
- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–80), English courtier and poet:
- John Scott of Amwell (1730–83), English Quaker, gardener, and writer:
- Anna Seward (1742–1809), English poet:
- William Shakespeare (1564–1616), English playwright and poet:
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), English poet:
- James Shirley (1596–1666), English playwright:
- Adam Smith (1723–90), Scottish economist and philosopher:
- Charlotte Smith (1749–1806), English poet and novelist:
- Edmund Spenser (1552–99), English poet:
- Thomas Sprat (1635–1713), English clergyman and writer:
- Laurence Sterne (1713–68), Anglo-Irish priest and novelist:
- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94), Scottish novelist:
- Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Irish satirist and priest :
- Nahum Tate (1652–1715), Anglo-Irish poet:
- Shakespeare’s King Lear, adapted by Tate (1681)
- James Thomson (1700–48), Scottish poet:
- Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932), American historian:
- Voltaire (1694–1778), French philosopher and writer:
- Horace Walpole (1717–97), English novelist, letter-writer, and wealthy gadabout:
- Ned Ward (1667–1731), English politician and writer:
- Joseph Warton (1722–1800), English poet and critic:
- Noah Webster (1758–1843), American grammarian and lexicographer:
- Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Irish poet, playwright, and wit:
- Gerrard Winstanley (1609–76), English reformer:
- Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97), English feminist:
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792):
- William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet:
- Lady Mary Wroth (1587–1651?), English writer:
- Ann Yearsley (1753–1806), English working-class poet: