Full Texts of Niles' Register on the Internet

[The Weekly Register, Niles' Register, Niles' National Register]


FULL INFORMATION ABOUT THE CUMULATIVE INDEX TO NILES' REGISTER REFERRED TO BELOW CAN BE FOUND AT www.nilesregister.com
OR CONTACT BILL EARLE, THE EDITOR, AT editor@nilesregister.com

The Cumulative Index to Niles' Register is just that -- an index, including only a limited (but growing) amount of full text. You ordinarily have to look up the references you find in the Index in a print or microform volume of the Register in a library. However, a number of volumes of the Register are now available on the Internet for free. The coverage isn't complete, and it's a bit of a hodge-podge: Volumes are sometimes difficult to retrieve, sections are sometimes missing, page counters don't always correspond to the page numbers of the texts, images sometimes are not clear, meta-data is sometimes bizarrely in error. But, for what it's now worth, here some comments about what we found when we looked into what's available at Google Books and at the Internet Archive in July, 2009. Then, below these comments, is a list of the volumes we've located, along with URLs where you can find the volumes.

Searching for Volumes. We found it difficult to retrieve particular volumes at both Google Books and Internet Archive. We had to use a variety of types of searches, many of which we think would not occur to most searchers. If you want to access these volumes, you'd be better off using the URLs below.

Coverage. We found all 75 volumes of Niles' Register. (There were a few issues printed of a planned volume 76, but the volume was never completed.) We have not yet been able to locate the sometimes substantial supplements and addenda that accompanied some volumes (although some of these may be incorporated with the volumes listed below without our having noticed). Both Google Books and Internet Archive occasionally have multiple copies of the same volume, but we've only included one URL for each volume listed below. When a given volume was available from both sites, we've given preference to the Google Books URL; we find its interface easier to deal with than the interface at Internet Archive.

Features. Both sites allow you to capture full .PDF files of the volumes. We captured one as an experiment, and found it rather ungainly and unhelpful to have, but others may find it useful. (Frankly, dealing with some of these electronic editions is one of the best arguments we know in favor of printed volumes.)

You can also capture some of the plain text or full text at either site -- the computer interpretation of the graphic letters on the page images generated by an optical character recognition (OCR) program. Anyone who searches historical publications on the Internet would find this stuff useful to look at. It's interesting because this is the text you are actually working against when you search for a name, or phrase, or whatever -- and the "plain text" or "full text" is as likely as not to interpret ERIE CANAL as ERIC CANAL. This is because the material is what is known in data-processing parlance as "uncorrected OCR" or "dirty OCR" -- there's generally no attempt to fix mis-readings like ERIC for ERIE. Thus, a lot of the searchable database might just as well be written in Elvish or Klingon for all the good it is as a search medium. Although the interpreting software frequently evinces spasms of lucidity, some of its output is just gibberish. (And, even if the OCR text were correct, it wouldn't be much help if the text doesn't contain the name ERIE CANAL -- because the reference is to THE GRAND CANAL or THE NEW YORK CANAL or some other synonym.)

Addresses. The URLs for the located volumes appear below. Clicking on one of these URLs should take you to the volume indicated. (If you get a black image where the page should be, pull down on the navigation bar to the right; the black image is just the outside cover of the volume.) If these URLs fail to work, please bring that to the attention of editor@nilesregister.com.

VOL. 1 - September 7, 1811 - February 29, 1812 - Click here

VOL. 2 - March 7, 1812 - August 29, 1812 - Click here

VOL. 3 - September 5, 1812 - February 27, 1813 - Click here

VOL. 4 - March 6, 1813 - August 28, 1813 - Click here

VOL. 5 - September 4, 1813 - February 26, 1814 - Click here

VOL. 6 - March 5, 1814 - August 27, 1814 - Click here

VOL. 7 - September 3, 1814 - February 25, 1815 - Click here

VOL. 8 - March 4, 1815 - August 26, 1815 - Click here

VOL. 9 - September 2, 1815 - February 24, 1816 - Click here

VOL. 10 - March 2, 1816 - August 24, 1816 - Click here

VOL. 11 - August 31, 1816 - February 22, 1817 - Click here

VOL. 12 - March 1, 1817 - August 23, 1817 - Click here

VOL. 13 - August 30, 1817 - February 21, 1818 - Click here

VOL. 14 - February 28, 1818 - August 22, 1818 - Click here

VOL. 15 - August 29, 1818 - February 20, 1819 - Click here

VOL. 16 - February 27, 1819 - August 28, 1819 - Click here

VOL. 17 - September 4, 1819 - February 20, 1820 - Click here

VOL. 18 - March 4, 1820 - August 26, 1820 - Click here

VOL. 19 - September 2, 1820 - February 24, 1821 - Click here

VOL. 20 - March 3, 1821 - August 25, 1821 - Click here

VOL. 21 - September 1, 1821 - February 28, 1822 - Click here

VOL. 22 - March 2, 1822 - August 31, 1822 - Click here

VOL. 23 - September 7, 1822 - March 1, 1823 - Click here

VOL. 24 - March 8, 1823 - August 30, 1823 - Click here

VOL. 25 - September 6, 1823 - February 28, 1824 - Click here

VOL. 26 - March 6, 1824 - August 28, 1824 - Click here

VOL. 27 - September 4, 1824 - February 26, 1825 - Click here

VOL. 28 - March 5, 1825 - August 27, 1825 - Click here

VOL. 29 - September 23, 1825 - February 25, 1826 - Click here

VOL. 30 - March 4, 1826 - August 26, 1826 - Click here

VOL. 31 - September 2, 1826 - February 24, 1827 - Click here

VOL. 32 - March 3, 1827 - August 25, 1827 - Click here

VOL. 33 - September 1, 1827 - February 23, 1828 - Click here

VOL. 34 - March 1, 1828 - August 23, 1828 - Click here

VOL. 35 - September 30, 1828 - February 21, 1829 - Click here

VOL. 36 - February 28, 1829 - August 22, 1829 - Click here

VOL. 37 - August 29, 1829 - February 20, 1830 - Click here

VOL. 38 - February 27, 1830 - August 21, 1830 - Click here

VOL. 39 - August 28, 1830 - February 26, 1831 - Click here

VOL. 40 - March 5, 1831 - August 27, 1831 - Click here

VOL. 41 - September 3, 1831 - February 25, 1832 - Click here

VOL. 42 - March 3, 1832 - August 25, 1832 - Click here

VOL. 43 - September 1, 1832 - February 23, 1833 - Click here

VOL. 44 - March 2, 1833 - August 24, 1833 - Click here

VOL. 45 - August 31, 1833 - February 22, 1834 - Click here

VOL. 46 - March 1, 1834 - August 30, 1834 - Click here

VOL. 47 - September 6, 1834 - February 28, 1835 - Click here

VOL. 48 - March 7, 1835 - August 29, 1835 - Click here

VOL. 49 - September 5, 1835 - February 27, 1836 - Click here

VOL. 50 - March 5, 1836 - August 27, 1836 - Click here

VOL. 51 - September 3, 1836 - February 25, 1837 - Click here

VOL. 52 - March 4, 1837 - August 26, 1837 - Click here

VOL. 53 - September 2, 1837 - February 24, 1838 - Click here

VOL. 54 - March 3, 1838 - August 25, 1838 - Click here

VOL. 55 - September 1, 1838 - February 23, 1839 - Click here

VOL. 56 - March 2, 1839 - August 24, 1839 - Click here

VOL. 57 - August 31, 1839 - February 29, 1840 - Click here

VOL. 58 - March 7, 1840 - August 29, 1840 - Click here

VOL. 59 - September 5, 1840 - February 27, 1841 - Click here

VOL. 60 - March 6, 1841 - August 28, 1841 - Click here

VOL. 61 - September 4, 1841 - February 26, 1842 - Click here

VOL. 62 - March 5, 1842 - August 27, 1842 - Click here

VOL. 63 - September 3, 1842 - February 25, 1843 - Click here

VOL. 64 - March 4, 1843 - August 26, 1843 - Click here

VOL. 65 - September 2, 1843 - February 24, 1844 - Click here

VOL. 66 - March 2, 1844 - August 31, 1844 - Click here

VOL. 67 - September 7, 1844 - March 1, 1845 - Click here

VOL. 68 - March 8, 1845 - August 30, 1845 - Click here

VOL. 69 - September 6, 1845 - February 28, 1846 - Click here

VOL. 70 - March 7, 1846 - August 29, 1846 - Click here

VOL. 71 - September 5, 1846 - February 27, 1847 - Click here

VOL. 72 - March 6, 1847 - August 28, 1847 - Click here

VOL. 73 - September 4, 1847 - February 26, 1848 - Click here

VOL. 74 - July 5, 1848 - December 27, 1848 - Click here

VOL. 75 - January 3, 1849 - June 27, 1849 - Click here