The value of contemporary printed sources for Irish economic history in the eighteenth century

Extract

Contemporary printed sources for economic history begin to become numerous from the early eighteenth century. The wealth of this printed material as well as the survival of the rarer specimens of the literature only in scattered and in some instances unexpected locations make the task of the research worker or historian an arduous and time-consuming one. Moreover, except where there are separate chronological catalogues of collections it is difficult, especially in the larger libraries such as the British Museum and the National Library, Dublin, not to overlook many relevant items. A bibliography of this material was first projected by Henry Higgs as one of a series of companion volumes to his Bibliography of economics, 1751-1775, published in 1935. The volume recently edited by Mr Hansonl is a revision and expansion of the galley proof of Higgs’s unpublished volume for the period 1701-1750. Meeting a real need, it will be welcomed. Its aim is to ‘include every new English work on economic affairs’ in the first half of the eighteenth century. Its use will save researchers much laborious consultation of indexes, and will greatly facilitate the location of the rarer items, which are frequently available only in a single collection.