The Complete Peerage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Complete Peerage (full title: The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom Extant, Extinct, or Dormant; first edition by George Edward Cokayne, Clarenceux King of Arms; 2nd edition revised by Hon Vicary Gibbs et al.) is a comprehensive guide to the titled aristocracy of the British Isles.

It was originally published as 14 volumes in 15 books, and is also available on CD. The first thirteen volumes were reprinted in photo-offset in six volumes, in 2000, together with Vol 14, which is an appendix, updating briefly from original publication (1910-1938) to 1995. Since this contains four page images on each smaller page, it can be hard to read. Cokayne is generally considered superior to both Debrett's Peerage and Burke's Peerage, especially in the field of genealogy, but suffers from its unwieldiness and high cost. As with Gibbon, the most interesting comments are often in the footnotes.