Camden Series

The Royal Historical Society’s Camden Series is one of the most prestigious and important collections of primary source material relating to British History, including the British empire and Britons’ influence overseas.

The Society (and its predecessor, the Camden Society) has since 1838 published scholarly editions of sources—making important, previously unpublished, texts available to researchers. Each volume is edited by a specialist historian who provides an expert introduction and commentary.

Today the Society publishes two new Camden volumes each year in association with Cambridge University Press. You’ll find details of recent volumes below.

Accessing the Camden Series Online

The complete Camden Series now comprises over 380 volumes of primary source material, ranging from the early medieval to late-twentieth century Britain. The full series is available via Cambridge Journals Online, providing an extraordinarily rich conspectus of source material for British History as well as insights into the development of historical scholarship in the English speaking world.

Full online access to all Camden Series titles is available to all Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society as part of the Society’s Member Benefits.

A number of volumes are also freely available through British History Online.

Editors of the Camden Series

The Camden Series is edited by Dr Richard Gaunt (University of Nottingham) and Professor Siobhan Talbott (Keele University).

Richard is Associate Professor in History at the University of Nottingham, with expertise in the political and electoral history of late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain. Siobhan is Reader in Early Modern History at Keele University, with research expertise in the economic and social history of Britain and the Atlantic World. Both have extensive experience of preparing and publishing scholarly editions of primary texts.

Contributing to the Series

Richard and Siobhan welcome submissions for future Camden volumes. If you have a proposal for a Camden Society volume, please:

If you are a contracted author, please refer to the Camden Style Guidelines when preparing your volume.

New and recently published Camden volumes, 2023-25

Fellows and members of the Society may purchase print copies of these, and other available Camden titles, for £16 per volume by emailing: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

FORTHCOMING: VOLUME 68: The Papers of Admiral George Grey, edited by Michael Taylor (June 2025)

The Papers of Admiral George Grey presents the memoir, journal, and correspondence of George Grey, son of the Whig prime minister Earl Grey.

This volume documents the Grey family’s experience of the Whig ministry of 1830–1834, and George Grey’s own naval career – which took him from the Battle of Navarino during the Greek War of Independence, to a decisive survey of the Falkland Islands, and then to the capital cities of South America during their pivotal early decades of independence.

In doing so, the volume sheds new light on the political, diplomatic, naval, and imperial histories of the early and mid-nineteenth century.

The Papers of Admiral George Grey is published online and in print by Cambridge University Press (from June 2025).

 

LATEST: Volume 68: The Household Accounts of Robert and Katherine Greville, Lord and Lady Brooke, at Holborn and Warwick, 1640-1649, edited by Stewart Beale, Andrew Hopper and Ann Hughes (November 2024).

Robert Greville, 2nd Lord Brooke, was a prominent figure amongst the opposition to Charles I, a religious radical and intellectual who emerged as a successful popular leader in the early months of the English Civil War. This volume publishes the richly detailed household accounts kept for Brooke and his widow, Katherine, on an annual basis between 1640 and 1649.

These texts have scarcely been studied by historians. They are an illuminating source for Brooke’s capacious intellectual, religious, and political networks, and for his mobilization of support for Parliament in 1642. They also uncover the administration of his estates and households in London, Warwickshire, and the Midlands before and after his premature death.

The Household Accounts of Robert and Katherine Greville, Lord and Lady Brooke is published online and in print by Cambridge University Press (November 2024). To order in print please contact: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Volume 67: Allen Leeper’s Letters Home, 1908–1912. An Irish-Australian at Edwardian Oxford, edited by David Hayton.

Allen Leeper, Oxford undergraduate and future Foreign Office mandarin, wrote regularly to his family in Australia from 1908 until he left university in 1912.

His letters, in Balliol College archives and the State Library of Victoria, record his experiences at Balliol, among a ‘golden generation’ decimated by the First World War, and on his extensive travels in Europe. They give a vivid picture of a continent on the eve of war, written by someone whose background afforded a degree of objectivity.

Allen Leeper’s Letters Home, 1908–1912. An Irish-Australian at Edwardian Oxford is now published online by Cambridge University Press (July 2024). Due to technical problems currently being faced by CUP, the hardback print edition of this volume will be published later in the year. To request a copy of the print edition, please email: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Volume 66: The Last Days of English Tangier. The Out-Letter Book of Governor Percy Kirke, 1681–1683, edited by John Childs (November 2023).

Governor Percy Kirke’s Out-Letter Book, here transcribed verbatim and annotated, covers the terminal decline of English Tangier, ending just before the arrival of Lord Dartmouth’s expedition charged with demolishing the town and evacuating all personnel.

It contains 152 official letters mostly addressed to the Tangier Committee, the subcommittee of the Privy Council responsible for Tangerine affairs, and Sir Leoline Jenkins, Secretary of State for the South.

Kirke’s correspondence traces the decay of both the town’s military fabric and the soldiers’ morale and effectiveness, and the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory modus vivendi with the leaders of the besieging Moroccan armed forces.

The Last Days of English Tangier. The Out-Letter Book of Governor Percy Kirke, 1681–1683 is published online and in print by Cambridge University Press (November 2023). To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Volume 65: La Prinse et mort du roy Richart d’Angleterre, and Other Works by Jehan Creton, edited and translated by Lorna A. Finlay (June 2023).

Jehan Creton accompanied Richard II on his expedition to Ireland in 1399 and witnessed his capture by Henry Lancaster, who usurped the throne to reign as Henry IV. Creton’s account is of crucial importance for historians of the period, as he contradicts the official version of events in the Parliamentary Roll.

This a completely new translation of the work, correcting the previous edition dating from 1824. This new Camden edition also includes Creton’s other known writings, the two epistles and four ballades.

La Prinse et mort du roy Richart d’Angleterre, and Other Works by Jehan Creton is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press (June 2023). To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

Full Series Lists

The Series was originally published by the Camden Society (established 1838) until its merger with the Royal Historical Society in 1897. The RHS Archive contains papers relating to the Camden Society, 1838-97.