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Welcome to British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. The collection now includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years. Each source has been carefully chosen using leading bibliographies. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.  

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries uses PhiloLogic software, developed at the University of Chicago, to enable in-depth browsing and searching of both the bibliographic and the full-text elements within the database.  We have recently upgraded the PhiloLogic software, enhancing performance and giving the collection a fresh new look.  We have improved the search engine for better performance and introduced new toolbar navigation for easier browsing, but all other functionality of the collection remains the same. Learn more >>  

Please e-mail any comments you have to editor@alexanderstreet.com.

Mother's Diary During Blitz 1940 Read the diary of Anne Jane Walker Shepperd, a 26-year-old mother of three, describing daily life in London during the Blitz.

Featured Search: Where Written (Setting): Prisons Browse all letters and diaries written by British and Irish women from prison, including the correspondence of Mary, Queen of Scots.

The Letters of Charlotte Bronte: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends Browse a significant collection of the correspondence of Charlotte Bronte as well as a selection of the letters of her sisters Anne and Emily.

Featured Search: Occupation: Nurse Read letters and diaries from women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries documenting their experiences nursing in a variety of medical settings.