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Manuscript and Archival Materials | Lewis Walpole Library
Manuscript and Archival Materials
| Lewis Walpole Library
Manuscript and Archival Materials
The manuscript collections at the Lewis Walpole Library provide invaluable insight into eighteenth-century life.
Well known for the approximately 3000 letters to and from Horace Walpole and a further 3000 photostats and transcripts of letters from other collections which together have been published in the Yale Correspondence, the library also holds other manuscript materials by or related to Horace Walpole. Among them are manuscript copies of
Aedes Walpolianae
and the
Mysterious Mother
, as well as Walpole’s
Commonplace Books (
II
, and
III
Books of Materials
, and many books and examples of graphic art bearing annotations in his hand.
Also included in the holdings are account and receipt books, bills and other documents of household and merchant establishments, as well as travel diaries and poems. Among the literary manuscripts is Louis XVI’s autograph manuscript translation of Horace Walpole’s
Historic Doubts on the Reign of Richard III
. The library also holds a ten-volume collection of mostly Italian music manuscripts compiled by Thomas Gray.
Other manuscripts include significant holdings of:
personal and official diplomatic correspondence from eighteenth-century notables such as
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams
Edward Weston
Henry Seymour Conway (
diplomatic correspondence
military correspondence
, and
letters to his brother
George Grenville
correspondence of friends and relatives of Horace Walpole including
Thomas Walpole
Anne Seymour Damer
Lady Diana Beauclerk
Agnes and Mary Berry
the Clement family
diaries and memoirs
Mme du Deffand
George Bubb Dodington
The Rev. Dr. John Trusler
Finding Manuscripts and Archival Material in the Library’s Collection
See the
Finding Lewis Walpole Library Collection Material
Research Guide for search help.
Although only a portion of the collection has been cataloged in the Yale University online catalog
Quicksearch
, including most bound manuscript volumes and recent acquisitions, the rest is accessible through a number of card indices and unpublished finding aids at the library in Farmington.
There are published
finding aids
to the Horace Walpole Collection and several other collections of original manuscripts, along with other archival holdings, in the Lewis Walpole Library in
Archives at Yale
View the Horace Walpole Collection finding aid
Several manuscripts, printed texts with marginalia, ephemera, and objects have been digitized and are included in the Library’s Digital Collections.
View digitized manuscripts and related material.
The manuscript collection has been described in several articles in the
Yale University Library Gazette
listed below. *Please note these articles are from JSTOR and only available to the Yale community.
THE MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS AT THE LEWIS WALPOLE LIBRARY
NON-WALPOLEAN MANUSCRIPTS IN THE LEWIS WALPOLE LIBRARY
Archon Directory:
Manuscript holdings as of 2004 are also noted under the indexes of the National Register of Archives in the UK, and
the library is listed in the Archon Directory
Walpole’s manuscripts, including those held at the Lewis Walpole Library, are also indexed in
Index of English Literary Manuscripts
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