The History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1790-1820 [5 vols]

These five volumes cover the period of Britain's long wars with France, and a huge expansion of the business of the House of Commons: Charles Abbot, Speaker from 1802-1817 estimated that the amount of business carried on in the House had quintupled between 1761 and 1813. They include the period of the Union with Ireland and the introduction of 100 Irish MPs. They contain 2,142 biographical articles and 314 constituency articles. The biographical pieces include works on Henry Addington, Sir Frances Burdett, Edmund Burke, George Canning, Viscount Castlereagh, Henry Dundas, Charles James Fox, Spencer Perceval and William Pitt the Younger as well as all the other important, and not soimportant, political figures.