About the Country Life Database

Rockefeller Library has holdings of Country Life, the British weekly periodical, dating back to1898, and indexes published by the magazine for volumes 1-166, ending in 1979.

The project of indexing Country Life from 1978 to the present was initiated as an aid to the Collections Department of Colonial Williamsburg. Begun by volunteer, Sandra Rogers, in the early 1990s using a word processing format, it has been transferred to an Access database and edited by volunteer, Anne Malone. It is kept up to date by volunteer, Laura Arnold (2000 to present). It was first presented on the Library’s website in 2005.

Guidelines for the indexing project included:

1. To concentrate on the eighteenth century, its architecture and decorative arts; includes objects that could have been owned or observed by an eighteenth-century person at home or on “The Grand Tour.”
2. Keywords were determined using The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts and The Penguin Dictionary of Design and Designers.
3. Keywords are indicated by “re.”
4. English spellings and terms were used to coincide with the magazine.

To search the database, enter a keyword or search term. You will see a list of volumes which match the term. Click on an individual volume to show the full record, which includes the following fields:

Country Life can be found in the Periodicals section of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. Please ask a Reference Librarian for help if you cannot locate the issue that you want.