The newspapers and news pamphlets, gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media available from the British Library. The collection includes more than 1000 pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers from the period, including the first successful London daily and first illustrated newspaper. The collection covers more than 200 years of accounts from newspapers from England, Ireland, Scotland and a selection of papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia. Students and researchers can conduct full-text searches of nearly 1 million pages - some 1,270 titles. The archive helps researchers chart the development of the newspaper beginning with irregularly published transcriptions of Parliamentary debates and proclamations to coffee house newsbooks.

A sample list of newspapers available through the Burney Collection includes:

• British Journal
• British Chronicle
• Evening Post
• General Advertiser
• Hoey's Dublin Mercury
• London Chronicle
• London Morning Penny Post
• Original Weekly Journal
• Whitehall Evening Post