Search FNL grants since 1931

onsidered one of the most important English poets of the 19th century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a prominent writer of the Victorian period. These letters, predominantly written from Barrett Browning to her sister Henrietta Surtees Cook, offer valuable insight into her work, public reception and social networks.

Spanning the period 1846 to 1860, the letters follow the publication of Poems (1844), for which she became well known, and cover the later part of her career, when she wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), Aurora Leigh (1856) and Poems Before Congress (1860). Eschewing the conventions of her time for female authors, Barrett Browning’s work focuses on social and political issues, such as industrialisation, religious controversy and gender inequality.

John Cole (1792-1848) was a 19th-century bookseller, writer, publisher and antiquarian and an under-researched character in the regional book trade. As a young man he was apprenticed to a bookseller and bookbinder in Northampton. After a stint in Lincoln he moved to Yorkshire where he set up business, firstly in Hull and then, in 1821, in the seaside town of Scarborough. The archive of John Cole contains 17 manuscripts and four printed books. Through them we can learn more about the mechanics of his printing and publishing business including the networks he set up relating to the print trade. He describes cataloguing private libraries, and how he acquired stock. They also tell of his meetings with important people of the day, such as abolitionist William Wilberforce, writer Charles Lamb and engraver Thomas Bewick, who gave him a proof of one of his bird pictures which is still in the collection.

The Use of the Church of York was one of the religious rites practised in England before the Reformation. It had variations from the Uses of the Church of Salisbury, the Church of Hereford, and the Church of Bangor. Many of these York variations had their roots in the ways services were held in the Cathedral church of Rouen, where this book was printed. Jean Gachet, a publisher and bookseller in York, commissioned around eight Use of York books to be printed in France of which this is one.

Eric Walrond was an unassuming Caribbean man who lived in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, in the 1940s. He worked at a local factory, lodged in the town and went 'under the radar' - apart from being the only Black resident in a town of 4,000 people. What many of his neighbours did not realise, however, was that Walrond was an established writer and the author of Tropic Death, a novel considered to be a classic of 1920s New York’s ‘Harlem Renaissance’. Published in 1926, Tropic Death comprised of ten short stories, reflects Walrond’s own experiences of living within the British Empire as a Caribbean man. Through the lens of several Black characters, his stories centre around themes of migration, death and Caribbean culture.

Though he only lived to 41, World War II cryptanalyst and mathematician Alan Turing made groundbreaking contributions to the early development of artificial intelligence, computer science and what is now known as epigenetics. King’s College, where Turing was an undergraduate and then a Fellow, holds the largest known collection of material written by him and a considerable amount of material closely related to him. The Delilah Project papers were the most important and extensive collection of Turing’s autograph material to come to auction and we are delighted to be able to add them to our Turing collection. Towards the end of the Second World War Turing pivoted from designing better decryption devices, to building a portable voice encoder for short-distance transmission. At what is now His Majesty’s Government Communications Centre at Hanslope Park, Turing was given space to develop his ideas for a voice encoder and it became known as the Delilah Project.

Henry Dresser (1838-1915) was one of the most significant and influential ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This set of volumes is Dresser’s unique author’s copy and includes the original, hand-coloured plates that were used as colour masters for the lithographs that were eventually published and sold by subscription. They also contain inserted drawings, annotations and additional plates that were never released. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest declared the volumes a national treasure for their outstanding significance to the study of book publishing and printing technique, as well as ornithological representation, illustration and annotation. The John Rylands Library holds an outstanding collection of natural history and ornithology printed works, including one of the subscription copies of 'A History of the Birds of Europe' and a unique album of letters and photographs compiled by Dresser which lays out the international social and scientific networks of which he was part. The University's Manchester Museum is the leading repository of Dresser’s collection of ornithological specimens – one of the finest in Britain. These holdings comprise around 7,600 bird skins and 3,000 eggs acquired between 1899–1913.

This diary, compiled by the author and journalist Hugh de Sélincourt for his lover, the German translator and writer Eva Schumann, is written with fluency and writerly skill, conveying the day-to-day uncertainties and privations of the Phoney War. Part of the diary’s significance lies in de Sélincourt’s detailed descriptions of life at this early stage of the Phoney War, from gas-proofing the house to a remarkable description of the blackout in London which vividly bring these experiences to life.

Title deeds and associated papers relating to the Great House Estate in West Hoathly and the manor of West Hoathly Rectory. Dating from 1453 to 1964, this is a remarkably complete collection comprising several hundred documents. It is rare that the entire archive of a small Wealden estate, with an unbroken title from 1524, appears on the market, which makes this a particularly significant acquisition.

Three volumes containing eight issues of the The Savoy periodical (1896) from the collection of Walter Edwin Ledger, collector of Oscar Wilde’s works, and his brother Percy George Ledger. Walter Edwin Ledger’s collection of Oscar Wilde’s works began as early as 1884 when he attended a concert at the Royal Albert Hall and purchased the official programme, Shakespearean Show-Book, which included Wilde’s poem, ‘Under the balcony’. From the late 1890s, Ledger began collecting in earnest, amassing an almost complete collection by the time of his death in 1931.

The books acquired are:
1. Hiob Ludolf, 'A New History of Ethiopia, being a Full and Accurate Description of the Kingdom of Abessinia', first English edition, London, for Samuel Smith, 1682.
2. Nicholas de Bonnefons, 'The French Gardiner instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-Trees and Herbs for the Garden', translated by John Evelyn, third edition, London, by T.R. & N.T. for B. Tooke, 1675.
3. William Winstanley, 'Historical Rarities and curious Observations domestick & foreign', London, for Rowland Reynolds, 1684.
4. Garcilaso de la Vega, 'El Inca: The Royal Commentaries of Peru', 2 parts in 1, translated by Paul Rycaut, London, printed by Miles Flesher, for Christopher Wilkinson, 1688.