It’s time for another trial!
Together with a colleague in the Social Science Library, we have set up a trial to The Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2000.
It is a fully searchable digital archive of what was once the world’s largest selling newspaper. Researchers and students can full text search across 1 million pages of the newspapers’ backfile from its first issue to the end of 2000, including issues of the Sunday Telegraph from 1961.
The newspaper was directed at a wealthy, educated readership and is commonly associated with traditional Toryism, despite its more ‘liberal’ beginnings especially in regard to foreign policy. Under the editorship of poet and Orientalist Edwin Arnold (from 1873 to 1899), the paper published widely on foreign affairs and foreign cultures. This led to The Telegraph’s coverage of Henry Morton Stanley’s expedition to Africa in search of David Livingstone, which it co-sponsored with the New York Herald.
Daily Telegraph notable highlights include:
The Kaiser Wilhelm affair: On 28 October 1908, the Daily Telegraph published an infamous interview with Kaiser Wilhelm, the German chancellor who alienated the British public with such uncensored comments as ‘you English are mad, mad, mad as march hares.’
“The German Emperor and England”, Daily Telegraph, Wed. 28 Oct. 1908, Issue 16694, p.11
The cryptic crossword puzzle: the crossword was circulated to recruit Allied codebreakers during the Second World War and was published in The Telegraph on January 13, 1942.
Feedback should be sent to jo.gardner@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or isabel.holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. The trial ends on 31 May 2016.
