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This two-volume work, published 1880-99, contains documents from the Venetian state archives from the period 1300-1454, illustrating Venice's dealings with her own empire across the eastern Mediterranean and with foreign powers, including Turkish sultans and Byzantine emperors, at a time when Venetian power was at its zenith.

Renowned economic historian and clergyman William Cunningham (1849-1919) published this work in 1896, which is considered a companion volume to his seminal Essay on Western Civilisation. Educated at Edinburgh, Cambridge and Tubingen, Cunningham wrote widely on theology and economics. He was a Cambridge lecturer and fellow at Trinity, Professor of Economics at King's College London, a teacher at Harvard, a founding fellow of the British Academy, and President of the Royal Historical Society. Favouring historical empiricism over deductive theory, his work, labelled neo-mercantilist, was against laissez-faire and favoured economic regulation, social religion, and conservative incremental change. This book outlines these views as part of an analysis of the basic units of economic life - exchange, possessions, money, credit, selling, price, labour, trade, profit, interest, rent, wages - and how these interact within capitalism. The work strongly influenced contemporary thought and remains relevant in the historiography of economics.

Cecil Nathan Sidney Woolf (1887-1917), Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was killed in the First World War. In this prize-winning book, published in 1913, Woolf examines the way in which the medieval jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314-57) interprets the Roman Law to make it relevant to fourteenth-century Italian political reality. Considering Bartolus's treatment of the relationships between the Roman Empire and the papacy, kingdoms and city-republics, Woolf places Bartolus's thought in its wider historical context by surveying the complex problem of the empire from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. In particular, he assesses Bartolus's most famous argument that the city is its own emperor. Arguing that Bartolus's influence lasted into the early modern period, both in the practice of law and in the use made of his works by writers like Bodin and Albericus Gentilis, this book also includes a useful table explaining Bartolus's distinctions between imperium and jurisdiction.

Little is known of the true origins of the French adventurer Victor-Antoine-Claude Robert, Count de Parades (1752-86). He arrived in Paris in 1778, just as the Franco-American alliance, which guaranteed French military support to the United States against Great Britain, was being signed. Parades was determined to join the French Army, but lacking the connections to do so, offered his services as a spy. He travelled repeatedly to England, visiting ports and fortifications to gather confidential information. First published in 1791, this work provides a detailed account of Parades' adventures and misfortune. Written while he was jailed in the Bastille, the book denounces the corruption of ministers who wrongly accused him of state treason after the failure of the 1779 Franco-Spanish 'Armada' against Plymouth. A fascinating historical document, it sheds light on the political relations between France and England during the American War of Independence.

Catharine Macaulay (1731-91) is considered to have been the first female historian. Her eight-volume History of England (1763-83) and her radical views brought her considerable fame in eighteenth-century England. She was a political activist in favour of parliamentary reform, and wrote several political pamphlets on the subject. She also wrote the feminist work Letters on Education (1790), which argues for the equal education of men and women and is thought to have been influential upon Mary Wollstonecraft. Macaulay supported both the American Revolution and the French Revolution and saw them as moves towards equality and liberty. This political pamphlet, first published in 1790, was written in support of the French Revolution and against Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. It is a passionate polemic that challenges Burke's interpretation of British history. It remains an important work in the history of political philosophy.

Moritz von Kotzebue (1789-1861), son of the German dramatist and an experienced seaman and soldier, who had faced Bonaparte's troops on the battlefield, travelled to the court of Fath Ali Shah Qajar (1772-1834), the king of Persia, with a Russian embassy in 1817. His account of the journey was published in German in 1819, and an English translation was published in the same year, claiming to offer a different perspective from the ordinary run of British writings on Persia. Covering the journey from St Petersburg through the Caucasus and down to Soltaniyeh, where the embassy meets the Shah, the work is a compilation of day-to-day observations on people and events. The author is astute and witty, and the book is not only an interesting read but also a useful source for the region's social history; a lengthy description of the Shah's court is particularly impressive.

This volume of letters was published in 1884, when General Gordon (1833-85) was engaged in the controversial defence of Khartoum that claimed his life the following year. The reputation of 'Chinese' Gordon, a complex figure, unpopular with the British government and military but adored by the people and press, was fed by works such as this. Covering his time in the Crimea as a young lieutenant, and later in the drawing up of the new frontiers between the Russian and Ottoman empires, these letters were published by his later biographer, Demetrius C. Boulger (1853-1928) as evidence of Gordon's strength of character and value as a military leader. One reviewer noted in them an 'indomitable cheerfulness of disposition, patient endurance, trustful fatalism, simple courage and faith, ... [and] single-hearted devotion to duty', words which reflected the popular view of Gordon as a symbol of British national pride and imperial honour.

Published in 1867, this book discusses the Crimean War from a pro-Turkish perspective. Sir Adolphus Slade (1804-77) covers the history of Ottoman military development as well as the origins of the Eastern Question, and the events leading to the outbreak of war. As a naval officer, whose Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c., and of a Cruize in the Black Sea, with the Capitan Pasha is also reissued in this series, he was lent to the Turkish fleet in 1849 and took the name Mushaver Pasha. For seventeen years he worked to overhaul the navy, especially the defences of the Bosphorus, and his successes made him impatient with the allied French and British fleets. In 1854, an argument with their Admirals led to his removal from active service, and to a bitterness reflected in this book, which nevertheless provides a fascinating perspective on the war's diplomatic and military complexities.

As a younger woman, Anna Maria 'Marie' Tussaud (1761-1850) rubbed shoulders with many of the key figures of the French Revolution, sculpting in wax the likes of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Marat and Robespierre. After moving to Britain, she made her living by exhibiting her sculptures in numerous towns and cities. In 1835 she settled in London and opened her museum, which became one of the city's most popular attractions. Initially reluctant about releasing her memoirs, Madame Tussaud was convinced by her editor Francis Herve (1781-1850) that her unique position - of seeing first-hand the events and characters that drove the Revolution, while maintaining a generally non-partisan view of them - would make the book of real interest to the public. First published in 1838, it offers evocative eyewitness insights into one of the defining periods in modern European history.

The Byzantine writer Laonicus Chalcocondyles (c.1430-90) has been described as 'the last Athenian historian'. From a noble Athenian family, he moved to the court of Mistra in the Peloponnese, then ruled by Constantine XI Palaiologos (later the last emperor of Byzantium), and may have been a pupil of Gemistos Plethon. Laonicus' most important work was this 'Apodeixis' or 'setting forth' of the history of the period from 1298 to 1463, during which the Byzantine Empire came under increasing pressure from, and eventually succumbed to, the Ottoman Turks. Laonicus uses the Ancient Greek historians, especially Herodotus, as his models, comparing the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the fall of Troy. The surviving Greek manuscripts of his work were not well preserved, and for this edition of 1843, the German philologist Immanuel Bekker (1785-1871) collated the various versions and supplied a Latin translation, rendering the work accessible to historians.

At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Malta officially became part of the British Empire in 1814. As the British presence there increased, so too did public interest in the island's history, particularly the military religious order of the Knights Hospitaller. In 1858, the army officer Whitworth Porter (1827-92) published this two-volume work, tracing the fortunes of the order since its establishment following the First Crusade. Incorporating details of the knights' social habits and customs into his narrative, Porter also provides supplementary material such as royal and papal documents in translation. Volume 2 opens in 1522 with the surrender of Rhodes, followed by the order's eventual relocation to Malta, which the Ottomans besieged without success in 1565. The coverage extends to the blockade of Valletta, then under French control, at the end of the eighteenth century.

Having married and settled in Florence in the 1840s, the poet and translator Theodosia Trollope (1816-65) found herself well placed to chronicle the events which contributed to the unification of Italy. While another Englishwoman in Italy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, would become better known for her verse, Trollope nevertheless firmly established herself in the liberal and literary circles of Florentine society, allowing her to witness at first hand, and explore in prose, the effects that the Risorgimento was having on those living through it. Vividly capturing the unfolding situation in Tuscany, twenty-seven letters first appeared in The Athenaeum in 1859-60. They were published together in this work of 1861, along with an update on the months that had elapsed since the last letter was written in April 1860. Championing the cause of unification, Trollope's writing helped to generate enthusiasm in Britain for the progress and personalities of the Risorgimento.

In the wake of German unification in 1871, Berlin became a place of increased interest to the other nations of Europe. The journalist Henry Vizetelly (1820-94) made his first journey to the capital of the new empire in 1872. Based on observations from a series of visits, this two-volume work presents a witty and detailed portrait of the city and its inhabitants. In Volume 1, Vizetelly describes travelling to Berlin and his mixed first impressions. He sketches a brief history of the city and its development from the thirteenth century onwards, and in a series of essay-style chapters he discusses aspects of Berlin culture and society - including dinner-party etiquette - as well as political and military personalities. Illustrated with hundreds of engravings from designs by German artists, the work first appeared in 1879. Vizetelly's Paris in Peril (1882) and Glances Back Through Seventy Years (1893) are also reissued in this series.

In the wake of German unification in 1871, Berlin became a place of increased interest to the other nations of Europe. The journalist Henry Vizetelly (1820-94) made his first journey to the capital of the new empire in 1872. Based on observations from a series of visits, this two-volume work presents a witty and detailed portrait of the city and its inhabitants. The topics covered in Volume 2 include the Prussian Landtag, the Reichstag, Berlin's places of education, its palaces, churches and museums, and its restaurants, cafes and beer gardens. Chapters on theatre, music, satire and socialism give a vivid sense of the cultural and political zeitgeist. Illustrated with hundreds of engravings from designs by German artists, the work first appeared in 1879. Vizetelly's Paris in Peril (1882) and Glances Back through Seventy Years (1893) are also reissued in this series.

Born in Moravia, the philologist and historian Joseph (Giuseppe) Muller (1825-95) translated into Italian several major works of German classical scholarship. He held positions at the universities of Pavia and Padua, in the state archives of Florence, and finally in Turin. This work, published in Florence in 1879, prints original documents from the archives of the Tuscan city states in Latin, occasionally Greek, and later in Italian, ranging from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The first half comprises correspondence with the crusader kings, the Christian communities of the Near East, and subsequently the Ottoman sultanate, introducing ambassadors and negotiating privileges for the city states' communities and representatives in the region. The second half contains the deliberations of the maritime republics on sailing routes and trade schedules. Together they illuminate political and practical relations between the Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim worlds surrounding the Mediterranean in this formative period.

After Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat at Waterloo (1815), the British government exiled him to the island of St Helena, where he forged a friendship with Betsy Balcombe (later Abell, 1802-71), the thirteen-year-old daughter of the government official in whose premises he stayed while Longwood House was being prepared as his residence. In these vivid memoirs, first published in 1844, Abell recalls her time spent with Napoleon, painting a portrait of a humorous and boyish character, of whom she was initially afraid, but then came to view as a friend and companion. Recounting his arrival, his opinions on music, wine and religion, his thoughts on his surrender and his battle tactics, his way of life, and his departure for his permanent incarceration at Longwood, Abell's recollections, which offer an unusual view of one of the most significant figures of modern history, have since inspired many documentaries, dramas and children's stories.

Watkin Tench (1758-1833) was a British Marine officer who was held prisoner from 1794 to 1795 in Brittany, at the height of the French Revolution. During his imprisonment he wrote a series of letters to a friend in London (it is not clear whether this was genuine correspondence or a genre narrative), which was published in 1796. In them we learn of the adverse conditions he experienced on two convict hulks in Brest harbour, and his later period of parole in private lodgings in Quimper, which he recalls more favourably, as he was allowed to roam the countryside within a three-mile radius of the town. Tench's letters reveal his thoughts on the turbulence and uncertainty brought about by the revolution, and the resistance (largely inspired by religion) of the Bretons to it. This is a fascinating first-hand account of France at a time of rapid political change.

Edited by the retired politician and archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-94), this 1891 publication reproduces the despatches of Michele Suriano and Marcantonio Barbaro, Venetian ambassadors to France in 1560-1 and 1561-4 respectively. Addressed to the doge of Venice, the documents provide valuable accounts of one of the most fascinating periods of French history, covering the death of Francis II, the accession of Charles IX, the regency of Catherine de' Medici, and the negotiations for the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots. The documents appear in their original Italian and in English translation. Evident in Suriano's and Barbaro's letters is the underlying tension between French Catholics and Protestant Huguenots, which would culminate in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. The book was produced for the Huguenot Society of London, and Layard, the Society's first president, was himself of Huguenot descent.

Although remembered today chiefly for his archaeological discoveries in Crete, Sir Arthur John Evans (1851-1941) became Britain's leading expert on Balkan affairs after publishing his account of travelling through Bosnia in 1875 (also reissued in this series). In 1877 he returned to the region as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, reporting on the continuing insurrection against Ottoman rule. Evans is at pains to point out that he does not regard himself as a war correspondent, but wishes to introduce 'in a tolerably peaceful fashion the insurgents and their little mountain territory to the English public'. Published in 1878, these letters offer historical, social and religious background to the insurrection. In so doing, they provide a valuable insight into the genesis of more recent conflicts in a region that has always been a melting pot of peoples and cultures.

Edward Blaquiere (1779-1832), an Irishman of Huguenot descent, joined the Royal Navy in 1794 and served, chiefly in the Mediterranean, throughout the Napoleonic wars. In 1820, influenced by Jeremy Bentham, he went on his behalf to Spain to observe the revolution there. On the fall of the liberal regime in Spain in 1823, Blaquiere and his friend John Bowring formed the London Greek Committee to raise money for the Greek war of independence and to lobby the British government for support. (It was under the auspices of the Committee, and recruited by Blaquiere, that Lord Byron made his famous, and fatal, journey to Greece.) After his second visit to Greece, in 1825 Blaquiere published this account of his own travels and of the last days of Lord Byron. His 1824 book on the progress of the Greek revolution is also reissued in this series.

Leicester Fitzgerald Charles Stanhope (1784-1862) played a controversial role in the struggle for Greek independence. After a career in the Indian army, he offered his services to the London Greek Committee in 1823, and was sent as its agent to Greece. However, his paternalistic view of the Greeks, as childlike 'natives' in need of guidance, was resented both by the Greeks themselves and by other members of the Committee. His approach, which supported the imposition of a unified constitutional system from above, alienated the Greek factions, especially Alexandros Mavrokordatos, whose otherwise pro-British stance was undermined by Stanhope's actions (which also disrupted the delivery of the Committee's loan to the Greeks). Stanhope was recalled by the British government (travelling home with Byron's body) and immediately released his correspondence with the Committee, which was edited and published in 1824, to deflect criticism of his conduct.

Paul Lacombe (1834-1919) had a varied career as a historian, senior official and general inspector of libraries and archives. He was one of the most brilliant minds of his day: in 1859 he graduated as first in his class from the elite Ecole Nationale des Chartes, and he was made Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 1887. In 1894, Lacombe published this groundbreaking work, which put him at the heart of the debate about l'histoire science - history served by scientific inquiry - at a time of intense controversy among historians and sociologists. Lacombe insisted on the need for the historian to make strict selections of evidence and to establish a hierarchy among facts. He also laid the foundations of a history which brings social and economic factors to the forefront of investigation. The book remains important and relevant to historians, sociologists and ethnologists.

Marie-Louise Victoire de Donnissan, Marquise de la Rochejaquelein (1772-1857) was brought up at Versailles, a god-daughter to Louis XVI. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, she married her cousin, the Marquis de Lescure. After the execution of the king, she accompanied Lescure to La Vendee where a Royalist insurrection was waged from 1793 to 1796. Widowed in 1793, she later married Lescure's cousin, Louis, Marquis de La Rochejacquelein, brother of one of the Royalist leaders. Her memoir, first published in 1815 and translated and reprinted many times, remains one of the most authentic records of this period. Although understandably partisan, she reports atrocities carried out by both sides with great immediacy. This reissue is taken from the 1827 Edinburgh edition, with a preface by Sir Walter Scott. Scott draws parallels between the Vendeen insurrection and the civil war in Scotland waged by the Covenanters.

George Bruce Malleson (1825-1898) was a British army officer and military historian. On his commission as an ensign in 1842 he was assigned to the 65th Bengal native infantry, and remained in India for the remainder of his military career, serving in the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852-1853) and witnessing the Indian Mutiny of 1857. After his retirement in 1877, Malleson devoted the rest of his life to publishing scholarly works on military history. This volume, first published in 1888, contains his detailed biography of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736). Prince Eugene is considered one of the most successful military commanders of the seventeenth century. Malleson describes his life and military campaigns in detail, exploring his strategies against the Ottoman Empire and his campaigns during the War of the Spanish Succession, and providing valuable insights into the methods and strategies of warfare during this period.

Gerhard Muller (1705-1783) is renowned as the first historian to specialise in the history and culture of Siberia. Born in Westphalia, Muller was invited to teach at the newly founded Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in 1725. He joined the Second Kamtchatka Expedition to western Siberia in 1735, and on his return spent the remainder of his life publishing works on the history of Siberia. His co-author Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) also served on several expeditions to Siberia. This volume, first published in English in 1842, contains the English translation of these authors' detailed description of the Russian colonisation of Siberia and tensions with China. Combining ethnographic material with accounts of Russia's trade with indigenous Siberian peoples and China, this volume presented one of the first scholarly accounts of Siberia to western Europe at a time when the region was little known outside of Russia.

The Abbe Giovanni Mariti wrote an account of the condition of Cyprus in 1769, almost 100 years after the final conquest of the island by the Ottoman Turks. Mariti travelled widely around the island in the seven years during which he served there as a consular official, and as well as recounting his own visits to towns, villages and monasteries, he describes contemporary events such as the outbreak of plague in 1760 and the failed insurrection against the Turks in 1764. This English translation, first published in 1895, also provides contemporary eyewitness accounts of the sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta which ended Venetian rule in 1570-1, and of the torture and death of the Venetian commander of Famagusta, Marcantonio Bragadino, a story which has passed into legend.

Revolutionary in his all-encompassing view of the Italian Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97) saw developments in statecraft and war as the cause of more publicised artistic progress. First published in 1860, this work is considered his magnum opus and is reissued here in the 1878 two-volume English translation.

John Cam Hobhouse, later Lord Broughton (1786-1869), became a friend of Lord Byron when they were at Cambridge, and was frequently his travelling companion. He first published an account of their journey to Albania and Greece in 1814, and reissued this updated and corrected two-volume version in 1855.

Between 1812 and 1814, Cambridge fellow and cleric Thomas Smart Hughes (1786-1847) and Robert Townley Parker, later MP for Preston, embarked on a tour of Mediterranean countries, beginning in Gibraltar and proceeding through Sicily, Greece and Albania. This illustrated two-volume account of their travels was first published in 1820.