''The History of the Anglo-Saxons'' is a three volume publication by English historian

Sharon Turner Sharon Turner (24 September 1768 – 13 February 1847) was an English historian. Life Turner Was born in Pentonville, the eldest son of William and Ann Turner of Yorkshire, who had settled in London upon marrying.H. R. Loyn,Turner, Sharon (1 ...

written between 1799 and 1805. It covers the history of England up to the

Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

. Under the influence of Thomas Percy's ''Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'' he compiled the first edition of the ''History of the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened ...

'' between 1799 and 1805, and became one of the earliest scholars to document Anglo-Saxon historical manuscripts in the Cottonian collection at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. By 1852, the history had seen seven editions. 'Immensely popular', Turner's ''History'' 'had immediate and lasting effects, stimulating both Anglo-Saxon studies as an academic discipline and the ideology of England as an ancient Anglo-Saxon nation'. It was cited as an influence by

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

in his preface to ''

Ivanhoe ''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' () by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting ...

'' and was a key step in inspiring John Mitchell Kemble's landmark 1837 edition of ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. ...

''. Although Turner 'specifically defended the idea of a single human species', his work also became important in emerging nineteenth-century theories of

racial supremacism Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nation, culture, ...

Written and revised as Britain sailed toward the national-imperial horizons of its Victorian Age, Turner’s ''History'' envisions the Anglo-Saxon past as a romantic narrative that anticipates an English future. Consequently ... the historical integrity of Turner’s labors in the British Museum is compromised by his Whiggish commitments, nationalist fervor, orientalist sentiments and imperialist beliefs. Likewise, the racist and colonialist uses to which later editions of his History were put in the post-bellum South and in settlement-period Australia have further jaundiced its academic legitimacy outside of England.Donna Beth Ellard, 'Ella's bloody eagle: Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Saxon history', ''Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies'', 5 (2014), 215–34 (216-17), doi:10.1057/pmed.2014.10.

The master copy is currently under the personal ownership of Professor Lewis Nicholson.

Digitised texts

* 3rd edn, vol 1 (1820): https://books.google.com/books?id=KhNGAQAAIAAJ * 4th edn, vol 2 (1823): https://books.google.com/books?id=pMIsAAAAMAAJ * 4th edn, vol 3 (1823): https://books.google.com/books?id=V4EOAAAAQAAJ

References

External links

www.library.nd.edu
1799 books History books about England Anglo-Saxon England {{Infobox religion , name = Pagans , image = , imagewidth = , imagealttext = , caption = , abbreviation = , main_classification = Anglo-Saxons , theology = German Mythology , governance = North west Europe , founder = , founded_date = , founded_place = Britain mainland Europe , separated_from = , branched_from = , merger = , separations = , fellowships = , associations = Germanic and Viking tribes , area = Europe , language = Old English , hospitals = , nursing_homes = , aid = , congregations = , members = , ministers = , publication = , other_names = , footnotes =