Around 250,000 books will be put online as part of a deal between the British Library and search engine Google.

The works, which are all out of copyright, date from between 1700 and 1870 and have been selected by the library to be digitised by Google.

Among the first works to go online are a pamphlet about French Queen Marie Antoinette and Spanish inventor Narciso Monturiol’s 1858 plans for one of the world’s first submarines.

Library chief executive officer Dame Lynne Brindley said: “In the 19th century it was an ambition of our predecessors to give everybody access to as much of the world’s information as possible, to ensure that knowledge was not restricted to those who could afford private libraries.”