🏛️ Category
Discovery, settlement, sugar, the British connection and island traditions.
An extensively researched account of nearly two centuries of British commercial and social influence on Madeira, tracing how resident merchant families informally “colonised” the island as a key staging post in transatlantic trade.
A detailed treatment of Madeira’s celebrated embroidery tradition — its history, fibres and techniques — with step-by-step stitch instructions, diagrams, photographs and projects.
A wide-ranging account of how exploration, empire and migration shaped the Portuguese diaspora, including the Madeirans who settled in places such as Guyana, Bermuda, Hawaii, Venezuela and South Africa.
Nine essays re-evaluating the early Atlantic “sugar revolution”, including a chapter on the sugar economy of Madeira and the Canaries, showing how Madeira pioneered the plantation-and-slavery model later exported to the Americas.
A foundational scholarly narrative of the Portuguese overseas discoveries, with a step-by-step account of Atlantic exploration and the settlement of the Atlantic islands, including Madeira.
A classic early 19th-century account of Madeira and Porto Santo by the explorer T. E. Bowdich, with zoological and botanical material added by his wife Sarah Bowdich Lee. Available as a modern facsimile reprint.
A reprint of William Combe’s 1821 history of Madeira, notable for engravings illustrating the costumes, manners and occupations of its inhabitants — a frequently cited early English-language account of island life.
A facsimile of Robert White’s 1857 handbook describing the island’s climate, scenery, flora, geology and meteorology, written for the Victorian travellers and “invalids” who made Madeira a fashionable health resort.
The illustrated travel journal of Isabella de França, wife of a London merchant of Madeiran origin — lost for nearly a century, then rediscovered — offering a vivid writer’s and watercolourist’s portrait of island life in 1853–54.
A reprint of Alfred Lyall’s 1826 travel account of his rambles through Madeira and Portugal, one of the British travel narratives that shaped outside perceptions of the island.
An illustrated history of the Madeiran Portuguese in British Guiana, who began arriving in 1835 to work on sugar plantations and later became a prominent merchant community.
A scholarly study of the Madeiran-descended Portuguese community in Guyana — their culture and the tensions of colonial society — and the fuller successor to Menezes’s earlier “Scenes from the History of the Portuguese in Guyana”.
An accessible, illustrated overview of Madeira’s history — from its 15th-century discovery and settlement through the sugar and wine economies to the modern era — produced with the Madeira Story Centre in Funchal.
Marcus Binney’s bicentenary history of the Blandy family, the English merchant dynasty that became Madeira’s leading wine shippers (and owners of Reid’s Palace) while expanding into banking, shipping and more. Richly illustrated.
A joint biography of the last Habsburg emperor, Charles (Karl) I, and Empress Zita — covering his final exile and death from pneumonia at Quinta do Monte in Madeira in 1922 and his burial at the church of Nossa Senhora do Monte.
A full-length biography of Empress Zita, tracing the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the family’s exile to Madeira, where her husband, Blessed Charles, died in 1922.
The standard English-language biography of Empress Zita, drawing on her diaries — the dynasty’s downfall, the exile to Madeira and Charles’s death there in 1922, and her six decades of exile.
A classic scholarly study of the Portuguese Atlantic islands’ role in 17th-century commerce and maritime navigation — a foundational academic reference for Madeira and wider Macaronesia.
Part of the "Of Islands & Women" series — a literary and historical exploration of Madeira through the lives of its women and the accounts of women travellers and writers who visited or lived on the island.
A reprint (originally 1896) recounting Dr Robert Reid Kalley’s Protestant mission in Madeira and the 1846 persecution and forced exile of Madeiran Presbyterian converts to Trinidad and the USA.
A hardcover history of Madeira embroidery produced by the Bordal house in Funchal (English translation), documenting the origins, techniques and cultural significance of the island’s famous whitework.
A classic Victorian guide and personal account of touring Madeira — how to see the island, letters from a year’s residence, and lists of its trees, flowers, ferns and seaweeds. Available as a facsimile reprint.
W. H. Koebel’s engaging Edwardian portrait of Madeira, weaving the island’s history with contemporary life and travel, illustrated with photographs by Mildred Cossart.
Anthony Drexel Biddle’s turn-of-the-century account of the Madeira Islands — history, scenery, vine-culture and society — with full-page illustrations and maps.
A mid-Victorian traveller’s sketch of Madeira for visitors and invalids seeking the island’s restorative climate, with practical and descriptive information.
Naturalist James Yate Johnson’s handbook to Madeira for invalids and visitors, with substantial chapters on the island’s fauna, flora, geology and meteorology.
The famous “Brown’s” practical guide for tourists and invalids, with coloured maps and diagrams, that ran through many editions and shaped early Madeira tourism.
American statesman John Adams Dix’s narrative of a winter spent in Madeira, recording the island’s climate, scenery and society from an invalid-traveller’s perspective.
John Driver’s first-hand letters from 1830s Madeira, with an appendix on the island’s history, climate and wine trade — a vivid early-19th-century portrait.
American naval chaplain Walter Colton’s travel sketches, opening with Madeira before Lisbon and the Mediterranean — the island as seen by a mid-century sea voyager.
An early-Victorian guide written for invalids travelling to Madeira for its climate, with notes on Tenerife and Lisbon and a Portuguese–English vocabulary.
A practical Victorian guidebook to Madeira compiled by William Reid, founder of the celebrated Reid’s Hotel, gathering useful information for visitors to the island.
Dr Michael Grabham, the long-resident Madeira physician, analyses the island’s climate and its suitability for consumptive invalids — a key text in Madeira’s rise as a health resort.
A 19th-century account of the persecution and exile of Madeira’s Protestant converts under Dr Robert Reid Kalley — a notable episode in the island’s religious history.
A Portuguese-language narrative history spanning 600 years of Madeira — from Zarco’s 1419 landing and the Funchal sugar barons through the Atlantic slave economy to the 1976 autonomy.
Volume IV of Rui Carita’s monumental Portuguese-language history of Madeira, on the 18th century: royal centralisation, the captain-general, the Church and the treasury.
Alberto Vieira rethinks Madeira’s economic history (in Portuguese), moving beyond product-and-cycle accounts to neglected themes such as finance and contraband in the archipelago.
The oldest narrative chronicle of Madeira’s history (written before 1590), recounting the island’s discovery and the deeds of its captains — a foundational primary source, in a modern Portuguese edition.
A major scholarly history reconstructing how the Madeira wine trade (c.1640–1815) shaped Atlantic commerce, self-organising merchant networks and American consumer taste.
An English-language volume edited by Madeira historian Alberto Vieira on the relationship between enslaved labour and the sugar economy in Madeira and the wider Atlantic.
A study of the Madeiran Portuguese who emigrated to Trinidad from the 1830s — their business, religious, cultural and linguistic integration into Trinidadian society.
A scholarly examination of transnational identity and heritage-language use among the Madeiran Portuguese diaspora on Jersey in the Channel Islands.
A centennial volume documenting the 20,000+ people from Madeira, the Azores and Portugal who migrated to work Hawaii’s sugar plantations (1878–1913), with essays and historical photographs.
An edited volume of case studies on migration across the Portuguese world, including the making of a largely Madeiran community in 20th-century South Africa.
An illustrated study of Madeira’s historic quintas — the grand manor-house estates of Funchal built by Portuguese aristocrats and British wine-merchant families — documenting their architecture, history and decline.
A photographic history of Aquila Airways, whose flying boats carried passengers between Southampton and Funchal from 1949 until the final flight in 1958.
An English-language narrative history of Madeira from Zarco’s 1419 arrival through the sugar era to the 1976 autonomy (the English edition of “Uma Nova História da Madeira”).
An illustrated reference on Madeira’s traditional whitework hand-embroidery (bordado) — its history, stitches and techniques. A distinct alternative to Carolyn Walker’s book.