Despite an abundance of primary sources, there have to date been few general histories of St Helena, although brief accounts the island's past have been included in more general descriptions since the late sixteenth century.  While there is an extensive literature about Napoleon's exile on St Helena from 1815 to 1821, for which St Helena is primarily known, these histories have very little bearing on the history of the island as such.  The six years of Napoleon's exile are of minor importance to the overall significance of St Helena in British imperial history, and the island's history can certainly not be reduced to them.

The first general monograph history of the island was Thomas Brooke's A History of the Island of St Helena, published in London in 1808.  This, and a substantially revised edition which appeared in 1824, were the first accounts to make extensive use of the island's records.  Brooke's attention to detail and combing of the old records, however, provided some essential groundwork, which has only been surpassed in the posthumous publication of Governor Hudson Ralph Janisch's Extracts from the St. Helena Records, published on the island in 1885.  Based primarily on the East India Company's letters and consultations, these extracts chronicle the most mundane aspects of St Helena life between 1673 and 1832, and a good half of its pages cover the first fifty years of that period.  As Janisch continuously moves between quotation and calendar, the Extracts are often not as reliable as one would like them to be, but they continue to be an important guide for researchers.  Taken on their own, Brooke and Janisch provide only a selective insight into the island's history to the 1830s, and should be used with caution by anyone attempting to arrive at a more general interpretation of St Helena history.

One other publication, Emily Jackson's St. Helena: The Historic Island (London, 1903) is much valued for the range of its documentary extracts and photographs, which cover mainly the period from Napoleon's exile to the turn of the century.  Her book as a whole is sadly ill-organised and could have been greatly improved with an index and a large amount of editing.  John Charles Melliss' St. Helena: A Physical, Historical, and Topographical Description of the Island (London, 1875), is justly famed for its extensive coverage of the island's geology, fauna and flora, including its superb illustrations, but is less useful as a source of local history.  Still the best general history of the island is Philip Gosse's St Helena 1502-1938 (London, 1938), which was reprinted in 1990 with a new introduction by Trevor Hearl.  Gosse is very close in style to Brooke, on whom the earlier part of his history is based, although he included a large amount of new material, especially for the period prior to 1673.  In more recent times, Percy Teale has been an admirable and avid discoverer of little known references to St Helena, as well as of hard to come by accounts and prints, but his Saint Helena 1502 to 1659 (Durban, 1978) contains mainly facsimilies of these finds and lacks any attempt at historical analysis.  This also applies to Teale's three volume Saint Helena: A History of the Development of the Island (Durban, 1974).

The two most extensive studies of recent decades are Edward Cannan's Churches of the South Atlantic Islands 1502-1991 (Oswestry,1992) and Dorothy Evans' Schooling in the South Atlantic Islands 1661-1992 (Oswestry,1994).  Other studies of recent years include Edward Hibbert's St. Helena Postal History and Stamps (London, 1979), David Vice's The Coinage of British West Africa and St Helena 1684 - 1958 (Birmingham, 1983), and David L. Smallman's Quincentenary: A Story of St Helena, 1502-2002 (Penzance, 2003).  There have also been a number of genealogical studies, such as Edward Carter's The Dovetons of St. Helena (Cape Town, 1973).  A regular forum for St Helena history is provided by Wirebird: The Journal of the Friends of St Helena, published twice a year, which contains short articles on a wide range of historic and contemporary topics, as well as book reviews and news.  St Helena's most prolific contemporary historian was Trevor Hearl, who since 1980 has produced a steady flow of articles on a large number of island subjects, as well as building up a remarkeable collection of St Heleniana.

An important development in recent years has been the increase in research by native St Helenians and settlers.  Resulting publications include Eric M. George's Music on St. Helena  (St Helena, 1995), as well as Barbara George's The First 'St. Helena': The East India Company Schooner St. Helena, 1814-1830 (Bristol, 1994; writing as Barbara Montgomerie) and The Chinese Connection: The History of Chinese Indentured Labourers on St. Helena, 1810 - 1836 and Beyond (Bristol, 2002).  There has also been a steady output of studies by the Australian Ken Denholm, namely 'St Helena, South Atlantic Fortress' (Fortress, No.6, 1990), South Atlantic Haven: A Maritime History for the Island of St Helena (St Helena, 1994), From Signal Gun to Satellite: A History of Communications on the Island of St Helena (St Helena, 1994) and Island of St Helena: The Flax Industry 1874 - 1966 (St Helena, 1996).  Notably, most of these studies have been printed and published on St Helena itself.

The only significant academic papers of recent years are Joseph Behar's 'Citizenship and Control: The Case of St Helenian Agricultural Workers in the UK, 1949-1951', Canadian Journal of History, Vol.33, April (1998), Stephen A. Royle's 'St Helena as a Boer Prisoner of War Camp, 1900-2: Information from the Alice Stopford Green Papers', Journal of Historical Geography, Vol.24, No.1. (1998) and Alexander Hugo Schulenburg's '"Island of the Blessed": Eden, Arcadia and the Picturesque in the Textualizing of St Helena', Journal of Historical Geography, Vol.29, No.4 (2003).