Two towns share this name, and so do their bookshelves. Search for “books about Lewes” and you get the Delaware one and the Sussex one shuffled together with no way to tell which is which. This is the list, separated — every book we can actually verify about either town, with its publisher, its ISBN where one exists, and an honest note on whether you can still buy it.
How this is paid for. Most “find it” links below go to Amazon and are affiliate links: as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. It changes nothing about which books are here — a book is on this list because it exists and is about Lewes, not because it pays. Several entries carry no affiliate tag at all, and say so: everything by Hazel Brittingham, whose work this site restores, and every free or library source.
The historian whose 1997 pages this domain published, and whose addresses the Lewes History Archive restores. She died in 2024, aged 97, having been given the Order of the First State by the Governor of Delaware. We take no commission on her books — the links below carry no affiliate tag.
Lewestown Publishers, 1998
ISBN 9780966395600
Published under the same Lewestown Publishers imprint whose web pages this site restores — the book and the archive are the same body of work in two forms. If you read one book about Lewes, Delaware, read this one.
Find a copyDelaware Heritage Press, 1989
ISBN 9780924117015
Sussex County before, during and after the Revolutionary War, worked outward from a single Broadkill family. Reportedly five years in the making, and the closest thing to a scholarly monograph she wrote.
Find a copyLewestown Publishers, 1998
no ISBN traced
We have not traced an ISBN for this title and are not going to invent one. It surfaces second-hand, occasionally signed. Listed because it is hers and it is about this town.
Find a copyByron (1903–1991), the “Chesapeake Thoreau,” taught school in Lewes as a young man and wrote the town’s bay pilots into his verse. Our page on his Lewes connection is the most-read thing on this site, and until now it gave you nowhere to go next. He published fourteen books; the complete list is in James Dawson’s free bibliography, linked at the foot of this page.
Driftwind Press, North Montpelier VT, 1943
no ISBN traced
The book behind that page. It contains The Pilots of Lewes and The Missing Pilot, written out of the years he spent here. Predates ISBNs and is genuinely scarce — expect a rare-book dealer, not a shelf. The selected poems below are the realistic way to actually read him.
Find it on AmazonWashington College Literary House Press, 1993
no ISBN traced
The practical route into the verse, and far easier to find than the 1943 collection.
Find it on AmazonJohns Hopkins University Press (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf)
ISBN 9780801819599
His best-known book, first published in 1957 — a boyhood on the water, told as a novel. Chesapeake rather than Delaware, and the one still in print. There is a Kindle edition too.
Find it on AmazonJohns Hopkins University Press, 1990
no ISBN traced
The late sequel, published the year before he died. No ISBN traced.
Find it on AmazonCornell Maritime Press
ISBN 9780870332104
A novel of the bay. Listed for completeness; not about Lewes.
Find it on AmazonTalbot County Library
no ISBN traced
The biography, by a former pupil who later worked as his assistant and went on to found the Gilbert Byron Society. Affectionate rather than critical, and the only book-length life of him we can find.
Find it on AmazonBooks that are actually about Lewes, Delaware and the water in front of it — the 1813 bombardment, the pilots, the lighthouse that the dune swallowed, the fort built for a war that never reached it.
The History Press, 2014
ISBN 9781626190641
The most useful in-print book devoted to Lewes itself. Morgan has written about this coast for decades in the local press, and this is the collected result. Start here if Brittingham is unobtainable. Kindle edition available.
Find it on AmazonAlgora Publishing
ISBN 9780875863375
Wider than Lewes but rooted in the same stretch of shore — privateers, the Revolution, the War of 1812 that put the cannonball in the Cannonball House.
Find it on AmazonThe Cedar Tree Press, 2007
ISBN 9781892142344
A single night in November 1925: a passenger steamer on fire off the town, and the life-saving crews of two states going out to her. Around a hundred pages, and one of the few books built entirely on a Lewes event.
Find it on Amazon1979
no ISBN traced
The standard account of the 1767 tower and the breakwater below it. The lighthouse fell into the sea in 1926; our archive page on the Cape Henlopen light tells the short version. Pre-ISBN and hard to find.
Find it on AmazonArcadia Publishing
ISBN 9780738541952
Photographs of the World War II battery dug into the dunes at Cape Henlopen — the guns, the sea mines, the concrete towers still standing along the coast. Pairs with our archive page on Fort Miles.
Find it on AmazonThe History Press
ISBN 9781540219701
The neighbour, not the town — useful if you are working out how Lewes, Rehoboth and Dewey actually differ rather than taking a brochure’s word for it.
Find it on AmazonWhere to go when the question is bigger than the town.
University of Delaware Press, fifth edition
ISBN 9781611492934
The standard one-volume state history, begun as a Bicentennial project by the man who was H. Rodney Sharp Professor of History at Delaware. If you need one authority for a date, this is it.
Find it on AmazonL. J. Richards, Philadelphia, 1888
The Victorian doorstop, out of copyright and free to read online. Enormously detailed and not always reliable — it is a source to check against, not to trust outright. We use it the same way.
Read free at the Internet ArchiveThe English Lewes is unusually well served, largely by one historian. Colin Brent’s two volumes are the standard account and are cited throughout the Lewes History Group’s own bibliography.
Colin Brent Books, 2004
ISBN 9780952242314
From the Saxon burh to the eve of the Georgian town: the priory, the castle, the Reformation burnings that Bonfire still commemorates.
Find it on AmazonColin Brent Books, 1993
ISBN 9780952242307
The companion volume, and the one that covers the Lewes Thomas Paine actually lived in — the assemblies, the trade, the politics of the High Street.
Find it on AmazonPaine lived at Bull House on the High Street from 1768 to 1774, argued at the Headstrong Club in the White Hart, and wrote his first pamphlet here before sailing for America. Bull House was given to the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1936 and is still its head office.
Thomas Paine Society UK, second edition 2020
ISBN 9781999326326
Sixty-four pages making a specific, checkable case: that the debating skill and the argument of Common Sense were assembled in this town, not discovered in Philadelphia. The best short book on the England side of this list.
Find it on AmazonThe 5th of November in Lewes is not a fireworks display; it commemorates seventeen Protestant martyrs burned in the town under Mary I, and it is run by seven independent societies. Our guide to staying in Lewes for Bonfire Night covers the practical side, including why the town asks non-residents to stay away.
Lutterworth Press, 2003
ISBN 9780718830403
The serious book. Goring traces the town’s religious life from the Reformation forward and, in doing so, explains what Bonfire is actually commemorating — which is not what most visitors think.
Find it on AmazonMX Publishing, 2011
ISBN 9781908218643
The popular history: articles charting Bonfire from 1813 to the present, a timeline running back to 1555, and society-by-society detail down to the fancy-dress cup winners.
Find it on AmazonSimon de Montfort beat Henry III on the downs above the town in May 1264 and captured both the king and the future Edward I. Our guide to the castle and Anne of Cleves House covers what is left to visit.
Mercia Publications, 1987
ISBN 9780948087950
Short, scholarly and still the reference historians cite. Carpenter went on to become the leading modern authority on Henry III.
Find it on AmazonOsprey Publishing (Campaign series), 2015
ISBN 9781472811509
The illustrated campaign account — maps, terrain and troop movements, which is what you want if you intend to walk the ground above the town.
Find it on AmazonNothing in the list matches that filter.
None of these earn us anything. They are here because if you are serious about either town, they are where you should be, and pretending otherwise would make this page an advertisement rather than a reading list.
An ongoing, sectioned bibliography of books, articles and manuscripts on the English town — castle, origins, buildings, biographies, directories. More thorough on Lewes, East Sussex than anything we could assemble, and free.
Owns and runs Lewes Castle, Barbican House, Anne of Cleves House and Bull House, and publishes on all of them.
The Delaware town’s own society. It has owned the Cannonball House since 1963 and runs the campus of relocated historic buildings our walking guide sends you round.
The historical-marker texts, which are primary and dated. We cite these constantly in the archive.
Someone has already done the complete Byron bibliography properly, for free. Ours is a reading list; this is the real thing.
Brittingham’s pages as this domain first published them. Every page in our archive links its own capture.
Every book here was checked to exist as a real publication, with its author, publisher and — where the book is new enough to have one — its ISBN. Where we could not trace an ISBN we say no ISBN traced rather than supply a plausible-looking number. Books we suspected existed but could not confirm are simply not on the page. That is the same rule the rest of this site runs on, described in full on our about and method page.
Most of this list is out-of-print regional history whose listings move between sellers, editions and formats. A direct product link to one seller’s copy is a broken link waiting to happen, so we link an ISBN or title search instead. It is slightly less tidy and considerably more likely to still work next year.
in print the publisher still sells it.second-hand out of print, but copies circulate. rare expect a specialist dealer and a wait. free out of copyright or published open, and linked to a free copy.
This domain published Hazel Brittingham’s work in 1997 and restores those addresses today. Taking a cut of her books did not sit right, so we do not: her three entries carry no affiliate tag, exactly as her page in the archive carries no advertising of any kind. It costs us very little and it is the right way round.
Last verified 28 August 2026Titles, authors, publishers and ISBNs checked against publisher listings, library catalogues and booksellers on this date. Availability changes; if you find a link that no longer resolves, or a book about either Lewes that we have missed, tell us at hello@lewestown.com and we will fix it.