We are very pleased to announce publication of the latest volume in the Society’s Camden Series of primary scholarly editions: The Last Days of English Tangier. The Out-Letter Book of Governor Percy Kirke, 1681–1683, edited by John Childs (Fifth Series, Volume 66 ,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.
The volume 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 edited by John Childs, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leeds.
The Last Days of English Tangier. The Out-Letter Book of Governor Percy Kirke, 1681–1683 is available online and in hardback print. Fellows and Members of the Society have online access to this latest volume, and all 400 Camden volumes of primary sources, dating from 1838 to 2023.
RHS Fellows and Members may also purchase The Last Days of English Tangier in hardback print at a discounted rate of £16 per volume. To order a copy, please contact: sabiqah.zaidi@royalhistsoc.org, marking your email ‘Camden vol. 66’.
About the RHS 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predecessor, the Camden Society) has since 1838 published scholarly editions of sources—making important, previously unpublished, texts available to researchers.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.
The next volume in the series is: An Australian at Edwardian Oxford: Allen Leeper’s Letters Home 1908–12, edited by David Hayton (June 2024).
If you’d like to learn more about the Camden Series, and how you can propose a new edition, please see our recent panel event ‘Scholarly Editing for Historians’ (July 2023), hosted by the Series Editors, Richard Gaunt and Siobhan Talbott.