This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a selection of general texts covering major topics. Some books are out of print but can often be requested through libraries and academic institutions or purchased on Amazon, Google Books and Abe Books.

Genealogy

Author Title Publisher
Barratt, Nick Who do you think you are? Encyclopaedia of Genealogy (Harper, 2012)
Bevan, Amanda Tracing your ancestors in the Public Record Office (Public Record Office, 2002)
Cole, Trafford R,

Italian Genealogical Records: How to Use Italian Civil, Ecclesiastical &

Other Records in Family History Research

(Ancestry Inc., 1995)
Evinson, Denis Catholic Churches of London (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1998)
Gandy, Michael Catholic family history: a bibliography of local sources (Michael Gandy, 1996)
Gandy, Michael Catholic family history: a bibliography for Wales (Michael Gandy, 1996)
Gandy, Michael, Catholic Parishes in England, Wales and Scotland - an Atlas (Michael Gandy, 1993)
Gandy, Michael Basic Facts About Tracing Your Catholic Ancestry in England (Federation of Family History Societies, 2002)
Hey, David, ed. The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Kelly, B W Historical notes on English Catholic missions (Classic Reprint) (Forgotten Books, 2018)

Kershaw, Roger &

Mark Pearsall

Immigrants and Aliens. A guide to sources on UK immigration

and citizenship

(Public Record Office Publications, 2004)
Payne, Mathew, Nonconformist, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Burial Ground Registers (Guildhall Library Publications, 2002)
Pols, Robert Dating Twentieth Century Photographs (Federation of Family History Societies, 2005)
Raymond, Stuart A

Tracing Your Roman Catholic Ancestors: A Guide for Family

and Local Historians

(Public Record Office, 2001)

Smith, Kelvin, C T Watts

& M J Watts

Records of Merchant Shipping and Seamen (Richmond, Surrey PRO, 1998)

Stanca, Luca Matteo, tr.

Michael Coffey

St Peter’s Italian Church in London: La Chiesa Di San Pietro A Londra (St Peter’s Church, Clerkenwell, 2001)

Italian Migration and Italian Community in the UK

Author Title Publisher
Allen, Tudor Little Italy. The Story of London’s Italian Quarter (London: Camden Local Studies, 2008)
Audrey, Suzanne

Multiculturalism in Practice (Interdisciplinary Research Series in

Ethnic, Gender & Class Relations)

(Ashgate Publishing, 2000)
Audrey, Suzanne Multiculturalism in Practice: Irish, Jewish, Italian and Pakistani Migration to Scotland (Ashgate Publishing, 2000)
Banfield, Edwin The Italian influence on English barometers from 1780 (Wiltshire: Baros Books, 1993)
Banfield, Edwin Barometer Makers and Retailers 1660 - 1900 (Wiltshire: Baros Books, 1991)

Barber, Peter and

Peter Jacomelli

Continental Taste. Ticinese Emigrants and their Café-Restaurants in Britain 1847-1987, (Camden History Society, 1997)
Bernabei, Alfio Esuli ed emigrati Italiani nel Regno Unito 1920-1940 (Milano Mursia Editore, 1997)
Besagni, Olive A Better Life: a history of London's Italian immigrant families (Camden History Society, 2011)
Bottignolo, Bruno Without a Bell Tower: A Study of the Italian Immigrants in South-West England (Centro Studi Emigrazione, 1985)
Chezzi, Bruna Italians in Wales and Their Cultural Representations (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015)
Chistolini, S Donne Italo-Scozzesi: Tradizione e Cambiamento (Franco Angeli Edizioni, 2011)
Colpi, Terri The Italian Factor: The Italian Community in Great Britain (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1991)
Colpi, Terri Italians Forward (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1991)
Colpi, Terri Italians’ Count in Scotland. The 1933 Census. Recording History. (London: The St James Press, 2015)
Cooke, Terry Little Italy. A History of Liverpool's Italian Community (Liverpool: The Bluecoat Press, 2002)

Denford, Steven & David Hellings

Streets of Old Holborn (Camden History Society, 1999)
Dietz, Angelika

Dimensions of Belonging and Migrants by Choice. Contemporary Movements between Italy and Northern Ireland

(Münster, Waxmann, 2011)
Di Felice, Pau Italians in Manchester 1891-1939: Settlement and Occupation

Journal of the British Association for Local History. Vol.30/2, pp.88-104  (available online)

Dorris, George E. Paolo Rolli & the Italian Circle in London, 1715-1740

(Berlin, De Gruyter Mouton, 1967. Ebook 2014)

Filby, P. William & Nemeh, Katherine H

Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (Gale Group, 2001)
Forte, Alessandro La Londra degli Italiani. Dai Penny Ice alla City (Roma, Aliberti, 2012)
Fortier, Anne-Marie Migrant belongings. memory, space and identity (Oxford: Berg, 2000)
Franchi, Nicoletta

La Via della Scozia. L’Emigrazione Barghigiana e Lucchese a Glasgow tra Ottocento e Novecento

(Lucca: Fondazione Paolo Cresci, 2012)
Fucilla, Joseph Our Italian Surnames

(Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company 2009)

Gabaccia, Donna R Italy's Many Diasporas: Elites, Exiles and Workers of the World (London and New York: Routledge, 2005)
  (Global Diasporas)  
Gabaccia, Donna R & Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives:Italian workers of the World  (London and New York: Routledge, 2008)
Franca Iacovetta (eds) (Studies in Gender and History)  
Girelli, Elisabetta Beauty and the Beast. Italianness in British Cinema (Bristol: Intellect Press, 2009)
Holmes, Colin John Bull's Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871-1971 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1988)

Hopwood, Doreen and Margaret Dilloway

Bella Brum. A History of Birmingham’s Italian Community (Birmingham Library Services)
Hughes, Colin Lime, Lemon and Sarsaparilla: the Italian Community in South Wales (Bridgend: Seren Books, 1991)
    Repub. Trowbridge: Cornwell Press, 2003)
Longmore, Leonella From Alien to Italo-Scot (Inverness: [no. pub], 2016)

Mayhew, Henry, ed. Peter Quennell

London Labour and the London Poor

(Spring Books, 1851, Repub, Ware: Wordsworth Editions)

Medaglia, Azadeh Patriarchal Structures and Ethnicity in the Italian Community in Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2001)
Panayi, Panikos Migrant City: a new history of London (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2020)
Rea, Anthony Manchester’s Little Italy: Memories of the Italian Colony of Ancoats (Neil Richardson, 1988)
Ruddock, Alwyn Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270-1600 (Southampton: University College, 1951)
Shankland, Hugh Out of Italy. The Story of Italians in North East England (Kibworth Beauchamp: Troubador Publishing, 2014)
Spiro, Margherita Migrant Memories. Cultural History, Cinema and the Italian Post-War Diaspora in Britain (Bern: Peter Lang, 2013)
Sponza, Lucio' 'Italian Immigrants in Britain. Perceptions and Self-Perceptions' in Histories and Memories.  (London: Tauris Academic Studies 2006)
  Migrants and their History in Britain, ed. by Kathy Burrell and Panikos Panayi pp. 57-74
Sponza, Lucio Italian Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Realities and Images (Leicester University Press, 1988)
Sponza, Lucio Italian Immigrants in 19th Century Britain. Realities and Images. Leicester University Press, 1988
Sponza, Lucio & Tosi, A A Century of Italian Immigration to Britain, Five Essays" Reading University Press: 1991
Stanca, Luca Matteo 'La Chiesa di San Pietro a Londra. St Peter's Italian Church in London (Roma: Salemi Pro Editoriale, 2001)
(trans. Michael Coffey)    
Tanner, Christine P. Carlo’s Ice Cream Parlour and Tea Rooms: Generational History of an Anglo-Italian Family (CPT Oral History, 2011)
Terry Cooke Little Italy. A History of Liverpool’s Italian Community (Liverpool: The Bluecoat Press, 2002)
Valgimigili, A La Colonia Italiana di Manchester,1932 (Firenze: E. Ariani, 1932)
Winder, Robert Bloody Foreigners, The Story of Immigration to Britain, (London: Abacus, 2013)
Wise, Sarah The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004)
Woolf, Stuart The Poor in Western Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London: Methuen, 1986. Repub.
    London: Routledge 2018)
Zucchi, John E Little Slaves of the Harp – Italian Child Street Musicians in 19th  (Liverpool University Press, 1999)
  century Paris, London and New York  

 

Inter-War Period and Second World War

Author Title Publisher
Baldoli, Claudia Exporting Fascism. Italian Fascists and Britain’s Italians in the 1930s. (Oxford: Berg, 2003)
Baldoli, Claudia and  Forgotten Blitzes: France and Italy Under Allied Air Attack, 1940-1945 (London: New York, Continuum, 2012)
Andrew Knapp    
Balestracci, Maria Serena Arandora Star. Dall’Oblio alla Memoria: From Oblivion to Memory (Parma: Monte Università Parma, 2008)
Behan, Tom The Italian Resistance: Fascists, Guerrillas and the Allies (London: Pluto Press, 2015)
Cacciatore, Nicola Italian Partisans and British Forces in the Second World War. Working with the Enemy (Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023)
Capella, Peter (ed) The Arandora Star Tragedy. 75 Years On – London’s Italian Community Remembers (London: [n.pub.], 2015
Chappell, Connery Island of Barbed Wire: The Remarkable Story of World War Two Internment on the Isle of Man (London: Corgi Books, 1984)
Colpi, Terri ‘The Impact of the Second World War on the British Italian Community’ in The Internment of Aliens (London: Frank Kass, 1993) pp. 167-187
  in Twentieth Century Britain, ed. by David Ceserani and Tony Kushner  
Foot, John Italy's Divided Memory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Gillman, Peter and Leni Gillman Collar the Lot! How Britian Interned its Wartime Refugees (London: Quartet Books, 1980)
Gobetti, Ada Partisan Diary: A Woman's Life in the Italian Resistance (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Hamilton, Hope Sacrifice On The Steppe: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942-1943 (Philadelphia: Casemate: 2011)
Jackson, Sophie Churchill's Unexpected Guests: Prisoners of War in Britain in World War II (Cheltenham: The History Press, 2010)
Koch, Eric Deemed Suspect, A Wartime Blunder (London: Methuen, 1980)
Lewis, Norman Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth (London: Methuen, 1980)
Moorehead, Caroline A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Itraly from Fascism (The Resistance Quartet) (London: Vintage, 2020)
Moorehead, Caroline A Bold and Dangerous Family : One Family's Fight against Italian Fascism (London: Vintage, 2018)
Morris, Eric Circles of Hell: the War in italy, 1943-1945 (London: Hutchinson, 1993)
Newby, Eric Love and War in the Apennines (London: William Collins, 2010)
Paolini, Stefano Missing Presumed Drowned. The True Story of the Internment of Italians Resident in Britain (London: [n.pub.], 2015)
  during the Second World War  
Paris, Philip The Italian Chapel [Orkney] (Edinburgh: Black and White Publishing, 2009)
Paris, Philip Orkney's Italian Chapel: The True Story of an Icon (Black and White Publishing, 2014)
Pelosi, Paulette Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales 1940-2010 (Llanelli: Mike Clarke Printing, 2010)
Pieri, Joe Isle of the Displaced – An Italian Scots memoirs of Internment (Manchester: Neil Wilson Publishing, 1997)
Pistol, Rachel Internment During the Second World War: a Comparative Study of the UK and USA (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)
Sponza, Lucio Divided Loyalties. Italians in Britain during the Second World War (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000)
Sponza, Lucio  ‘The British Government and the Internment of Italians’ in The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain, (London: Frank Kass, 1993) 
and Tony Kushner ed. by David Cesarani and Tony Kushner (pp.125-144)  
Stent, Robert A Bespattered Page? The Internment of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Enemy Aliens (London: Andre Deutsch)
Stille, Alexander Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism (London: Jonathan Cape)
Tudor, Malcolm Among the Italian Partisans: the Allied Contribution to the Reisistance (Oxford: Blackwells, 2016)
Ugolini, Wendy Experiencing War as the ‘enemy Other’: Italian Scottish Experience in World War II,  (Manchester University Press: 2011)
  (Cultural History of Modern War)  
Voss-Del Mar, Nella The Italian in the ATS (Luton: Arthur H. Stockwell, 2001)
Webster, Wendy Mixing it: diversity in World War Two Britain (Oxford: United Kingdom, 2018)

 

Biography and Autobiography

Author Title Publisher
Besagni, Olive

A Better Life. A History of London's Italian Immigrant Families in Clerkenwell's 

Little Italy in the 19th and 20th Centuries

(London: Camden History Society, 2011)
Contini, Mary Dear Olivia. An Italian Journey of Love and Courage (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2006)
Contini, Mary Dear Francesca, An Italian Journey of Recipes Recounted with Love (Ebury Press, 2003)
Coraggioso Cogliardo [Eugenio D’Agostino] Wandering Minstrel and Reports of Other Rondini (Edinburgh, Neilson Book Services: 2018)
Corelli, Maria In Love and War: a Letter to My Parents (Short Books: 2001)
Emanuelli, Hector A Sense of Belonging. From the Rhonda to the Potteries. Memories of a Welsh Italian Englishman (Lagenfield: Six Towns Books, 2010)
Fisher, Colin Pieroni's Fountain: An Italian Immigrant's Search for Respectability in Victorian Bath (Akeman Press, 2014)
Fontanella, Cecilia & Arleene Piercy Crossing the Divide (Lightening Source UK Ltd, 2007)
Forte, Charles Forte: the autobiography of Charles Forte (London: Pan Books, 1987)
Pieri, Joe River of Memory. Memoirs of a Scots-Italian (Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 2006)
Kerekes, David Mezzogiorno. Life. Death. Southern Italy (Headpress, 2012)
Kinross, Felicity Coffee and Ices: the story of Carlo Gatti in London (London: Canal Museum, 2020 [2nd ed])
Newby, Eric A Small Place in Italy  
Moorehead, Caroline Iris Origo : Marchesa of Val D'orcia.  (London: Alison & Busby, 2014)
Moorehead, Caroline Edda Mussolini : The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe.  (London: Chatto & Windus, 2022)
Pia, Anne Language of my choosing (Luath Press Ltd., 2017)
Piero Tognini A Mind at War (New York: Vantage Press, 1990)
Rinaldi, Giancarlo From the Serchio to the Solway  
Salvoni, E & Fawkes Elena. A Life in Soho (Quartet Books, 1990)
Spinetti, Victor Up Front (London: Portico, 2006)
Tanner, Christine P. Carlo's Ice Cream Parlour and Tea Rooms. Generational Oral History of an Anglo-Italian family (Hants: CPT Oral History, 2011)

 

Fiction

Author Title Publisher
Anita Arcari, The Hokey Pokey Man, (Y Lolfa, 2010)
Borlenghi, Patricia Zaira, a Girl Before Her Time (Patrician Press, 2013)
Borlenghi, Patricia Clarice, An Honest Woman (Patrician Press, 2013)
Borlenghi, Patricia Dorek, Deaf and Unheard (Patrician Press, 2015)
Dye, Natalie Arandora Star. (Peach Publishing, 2014)
Hughes, Melanie War Changes Everything (Patrician Press, 2017)

 

Italy

Author Title Publisher
Arcari, Virginia, Picinisco, Uncovering 1000 Years of History (Amazon: 2017)

Beales, Derek &

Eugenio F Biagini

The Risorgimento And The Unification of Italy (Routledge, 2002)
Bell, Donad Howard,

Sesto San Giovanni (Class and Culture) Workers, Culture, and Politics in an Italian Town, 1880-1922

 (Rutgers University Press, 1986)
Choate, Mark I Emigrant Nation: The Making of Italy Abroad  (Harvard University Press, 2008)
Di Giovanni, C Eravamo Terrorist; Lettere dal carcere (Edizione Paoline, 1989)
Dickens, Charles Pictures from Italy  
Dickie, John Cosa Nostra: A history of the Sicilian Mafia (Hodder Paperbacks, 2007)
Donati, Sabina A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950  (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2013)
Douglas, Norman Old Calabria (Sale: Phoenix Press, 2001)
Gilbert, Mark Italy Reborn: from Fascism to Democracy (Penguin Random House, 2024)
Gilmour, David The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples (London and New York: Penguin, 2012)
Hibbert, C Benito Mussolini: the Rise and Fall of Il Duce (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
Holmes, George The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy (Oxford University Press, 1997)
Levi, Carlo Christ Stopped at Eboli (Penguin Modern Classics, 2000)
Robb, Peter Street Fight in Naples: A City's Unseen History (Bloomsbury, 2012)
Smith, Dennis Mack Italy and its Monarchy (Yale University Press, 1992)
Trevelyan, G M Garibaldi’s Defence of the Roman Republic 1848-9 (Longman's, Green and Co. 1914)
Trevelyan, G M Garibaldi and the Thousand (Penguin Books, 1962)
Trevelyan, G M Garibaldi and the Making of Italy (London: Thomas Nelson, 1920)
Wicks, Margaret C, Italian Exiles in London, 1816-1848 (Forgotten Books, 2012)
Woolf, Stuart

A History of Italy: The Social Constraints of Political Change

1700-1860

(Routledge Revivals, 2022)

 

Plays

Author Title Publisher
Buffini, Moira Moira Buffini Plays 1: Blavatsky’s Tower; Gabriel; Silence; Loveplay (Faber and Faber, 2006
Buffini, Moira Moira Buffini: Plays 2: Dinner; Dying for It; A Vampire Story; Welcome to Thebes; Handbagged (Faber and Faber, 2015)
Buffini, Moira Damon Albarn & Rufus Norris wonder.land (Faber and Faber, 2015)
De Angelis, April April De Angelis Plays: "Ironmistress", "Hush", "Playhouse Creatures", "The Positive Hour" (April de Angelis, 1999)
De Angelis, April Playhouse Creatures (Samuel French, 1994)
De Angelis, April Jumpy (Faber and Faber, 2012)

 

Poetry & Lyricists

Author Title Publisher
Bragg, Billy A Lover Sings: Selected Lyrics (Faber & Faber, 2015)
Nutini, Paolo These Streets: Song Book (Faber Music)
Pia, Anne Keeping Away the Spiders: Essays on Breaching Barriers (Luath Press Ltd., 2020)
Pia, Anne Transitory (Luath Press Ltd., 2020)

NB: We welcome corrections, or suggestions for additions to this bibliography. Please email our Librarian with your comments.

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