Search FNL grants since 1931

These four preparatory drawings are for the painting ‘Scenes from the Life of St Martin’, which forms the altarpiece of St Martin’s Chapel in the North-East transept of the Cathedral. Knights completed the painting in 1933.

The painting itself was lent to the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2016 for its widely acclaimed retrospective exhibition on Knights, and was displayed alongside a number of her preparatory drawings. The exhibition highlighted the importance of the Cathedral’s painting amongst the artist’s oeuvre. For the Cathedral, the painting is a highly significant example of 20th-century art, and also of work by women artists.

A finely bound copy of the 1931 edition of L'Ombre de la Croix by the brothers Jérôme and Jean Tharaud, complete with all the 73 etchings by Frank Brangwyn. The copy was commissioned for the French film producer Guy Seligman, and bears his book label. It was very beautifully rebound (two volumes in one) by E and A Maylander of Paris.

Brangwyn’s work is at the heart of the Campion Hall collection: his set of stations of the cross, chiaroscuro lithographs onto wooden panel (1927) are the key element in the design of the Chapel, since the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, took the module of panelling, fenestration, and paving from them. Brangwyn also gave the Hall his high quality cast of the Bruges Madonna, with which he had been presented when he was given the freedom of Bruges (his native city), and also his own copy (in a fine 17th-century binding) of the Dürer Little Passion. The Hall also owns a number of his etchings, including a few from L'Ombre de la Croix, framed and currently hung with prints by David Jones and Eric Gill.

An exceptionally rare artist’s book in a contemporary cuir japonais binding, demonstrating the late 19th-century fashion for all things Japanese. There are no other copies recorded in UK libraries; another of the six special copies can be found at the Bibliothèque municipal in Angers (in a binding by Irène Pascalidès). This acquisition complements the Library’s holdings of fine bindings, colour plate books and extra-illustrated books, as well as being a fine addition to our collections of material relating to Japan.

The contemporary cuir japonais binding is by Lucien Durvand (1852–1924) and features a blind-stamped collage of tasselled medallions with hand-coloured Japanese scenes (including a pagoda, the procession of a dignitary, battle scenes, and an arching bridge) and Japanese-patterned brocade endleaves in shades of jade, crimson and gold.

An illustrated German post-incunable from the Macclesfield Library. This rare imprint by an otherwise prolific printer is an excellent complement to the University Library’s holdings of post-incunabula and works of Classical scholarship. It is only the third known copy, with an impeccable provenance.

Phrygius’ account was first put into print in Cologne prior to 1472 (two copies in the University Library) and a further eight editions were printed before 1500. Several editions were produced in Wittenberg in the early 16th century, firstly by the private press of Nicolaus Marschalk in 1502 (using the same woodcuts as here) and later by Grunenberg, though very few survive; only two other copies are known of the current edition, both in Germany. The Library has copies of four other pre-1550 editions of Phrygius, though none is illustrated.

The letter concerns Duveen's translation of Vile Bodies and contains a potted autobiography of his life as well as an inscribed portrait after Henry Lamb. Les Editions de la Table Ronde, the Parisian publishing house founded by Roland Laudenbach, offered to publish a translation of Waugh’s second novel, Vile Bodies (1930). In the letter he offers explanations of unfamiliar English expressions in the text of the novel, explaining what a “chubb fuddler” is and that kedgeree is “an excellent luncheon or breakfast consisting of rice, eggs & salmon or haddock”.

Herbert Read studied at the University of Leeds, during which time his passion for art and literature flourished at the Leeds Arts Club. He went straight from the University to fight in World War I, emerging in 1918 as a decorated hero (DSO, MC), committed pacifist and published poet. His reputation as a poet and critic grew in post-war London, and he made lifelong friendships with leading writers, above all TS Eliot. As a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, he published widely, on literature, art history and the contemporary visual arts.

The papers acquired with the support of the Friends of National Libraries supplement and enrich the existing holdings of the Brotherton Library, extending the chronological scope of the collection. Significantly, this acquisition covers the Great War and the growth of the relationship between Herbert Read and Margaret Read (over a decade later), as well as documenting the close friendship with T S Elliot.

The archives of three generations of the Leveson-Gower family of Staffordshire (known collectively as The Granville Archive). The archive reflects the family’s pivotal role in eighteenth and nineteenth century politics and society and is of outstanding significance for the study and understanding of modern British history. Its coverage of foreign policy from the American War of Independence to the late-Victorian era, a period when Britain was at the height of its commercial and imperial power, is also extensive.

The papers reflect British politics and society in the late eighteenth century and contain important material relating to both the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.

An interesting manuscript journal of three 18th-century journeys from Devon to London. They are unusually evocative of the age, and include among other things a visit to Oxford and the Bodleian Library and an encounter with a gentlemanly highwayman.

The diary comprises only 48 pages, but is packed with interesting observations. The author begins his journeys in the Plymouth area. The first journey to London began on 22 October 1755 and took in Portsmouth, Salisbury, Windsor. The diarist is highly opinionated - Woodgate is a “poor despicable place” and Stockbridge a “poor wretched Town”, though the people of Salisbury are the “most polite & genteel people of any in England (London only excepted)”. He reached London on 29 October.

In London the diarist attends church, plays (badly) at cards and spends time in coffee houses eating oysters and drinking wine. He visits St. Paul’s, Old London Bridge, and the lunatic asylums at Bedlam and neighbouring St. Luke's Hospital. On 7 November, near Acton, he and his travelling companion Colonel Carr were “robbed by a Genteel Highwayman, who behaved very civill, took from me my watch, & six shillings in money, a little surprized, but not at all afraid, if a family watch he told me I might hear of it again, at Amsterdam”. Later the diarist visited the Old Bailey and saw the trial of “the young highwayman ... there were 3 indictments against him, & each proved[;] very evidently he was acquitted”. On 15 November he went to “see his Majesty go to the houses [of Parliament], a very august, & solemn sight”. There follows an interesting impression of Westminster Hall with the Commons and Lords, the courts and coffee houses.

A unique copy of Voltaire’s epic French poem in ten cantos written in alexandrine couplets, bound with a previously unknown letter from Voltaire to Queen Caroline.

This copy of the “fourth” London edition of 1728 is unrecorded and includes a three-page letter in Voltaire’s hand dated 25 April 1728 presenting it to Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, formerly the Princess of Wales. Although he mentions waiting until the fourth edition – “plus correcte et plus épurée” - to send a copy to the Queen he had in fact already written to present a first edition just ten days earlier (the book and letter are now housed in a library in Germany). Somewhat intriguingly Voltaire’s letter is at the back of the book and is bound-in upside down, posing a question as to whether the volume was ever sent.

These two previously unknown items were listed on eBay in November 2018. The seller’s memory was that they had come from a house clearance about 20 years ago.

Both relate to the tithing of Winterbourne, which is in the ancient Berkshire parish of Chieveley. The map is titled as showing ‘John Sherwood’s land in Donnington’, although the property was actually situated in the south of Winterbourne tithing, adjacent to Donnington Castle. It was drawn by William White, is hand-coloured on vellum and measures 545mm x 345mm. It is a particularly fine example of a late-17th century small estate map, showing field names and acreages beside an accompanying schedule, together with a charming insert showing the main house and surrounding farm buildings. The Berkshire Record Office holds no other records relating to this estate and the map almost certainly provides the only evidence for most of the field names marked upon it, as most are not recorded in the Place Names of Berkshire.