The entire Times archive is now available on-line and, for the moment, is completely free - all you have to do is register at www.timesonline.co.uk/
It's a staggering resource - everything is there - adverts, announcements, news, gossip - right from the very first edition.
These scans are from my personal collection of Regency newspapers, two snippets almost at random from February 29th, 1812, but the fantastic thing about the on-line archive is that everything is indexed. Not only does this mean you can locate exactly what you need - but you also see the whole edition if you want, leading to hours of serendipitous meandering.
It really should come with health warning for authors - I've never come across such addictive displacement activity.
Louise Allen
