This dataset describes instances of reprinting and text reuse (scissors-and-paste journalism) in British newspapers between 1800-1837. It was derived from the 19th-Century British Library Newspapers, Part 1 digitised newspaper collection by using plagiarism detection software to identify instances of substantially similar text. It contains a series of manifests that describe a) instances of shared content b) the likely directionality of copying and c) which instances are evolutionary dead-ends and have no known reprints. It is part of the Scissors and Paste Project.