The series British Envoys to Germany comprises a selection of official reports sent by the British diplomats from the eight British diplomatic missions in Germany (Frankfurt, Berlin, Hanover, Saxony, Stuttgart, Munich, and Vienna) to the Foreign Office between 1816 and 1866. All originals are held in the National Archives/Public Record Office, Kew.

The selection for this edition is based on the quality, originality of perspective, and informative value of the dispatches as well as on a balance between the individual missions. While not aiming to present a representative selection of letters from each mission, it is intended to cover the major developments of the period 1816 to 1866 and present as multifaceted a picture of British perceptions of Germany as possible. Dispatches on non-German affairs (including the non-German parts of the Austrian Empire) which do not refer to Anglo-German relations were not considered for selection.

Each dispatch is provided with a standardized heading giving archive class mark (e.g. FO 68/72 = Foreign Office, general correspondence Saxony, volume 72) author, addressee, number of dispatch, place and date of origin, and a brief summary composed by the editors. The transcribed reports, with some exceptions, are printed in their entirety, in order to maintain the authenticity of the sources, although the standardized form of address and concluding formula are omitted. Enclosures to the original dispatches, which can be voluminous, are not reproduced, but are listed in footnotes. The orthography (including capitalisation and abbreviations), punctuation (including apostrophes including apostrophes and the usage of ‘it’s’ as a possessive pronoun instead of ‘its’) and emphases (underlining) of the original are retained, and where necessary, explained in a footnote or in parentheses. Errors or deviations in the original which might be mistaken for mistranscription are marked ‘[sic]’. Placeholders, line breaks or paging are not considered.

Annotations to the dispatches, in the form of brief footnotes, aim to provide all the information required for an understanding of the document which does not become apparent from the document itself. German, French, and Latin expressions and terms are translated. Treaties, legislation, and publications mentioned in the reports are specified in the footnotes, and explained where necessary. In many cases, reference is made to other annotations and documents in the same volume. All individuals mentioned are identified, as far as possible, and listed with brief biographies in the annotated index of names. A subject index and index of places completes each volume.

A combined subject and biographical index (including the short biographies) of the series is available online. Additionally, all dispatches included in the volumes are listed and accessible via search tools. Data from volume 4 (1851-1866), as well as the volumes in the follow-up series, British Envoys to the Kaiserreich (1871-1890/1914), will be added to the digital indexes as each volume is published.