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Edward Thomas was a literary critic, writer and, ultimately, poet who was killed in the First World War at the beginning, literally, of the Battle of Arras on Easter Monday, 9 April, 1917. Amongst his most well-known books are The Icknield Way (1913) and In Pursuit of Spring (1914), and his poetry includes the often-requested Adlestrop (1915) and As the team’s head-brass (1916). Thomas was also a lover of nature and inspired by many of those writing about (and living in) the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – including W H Davies, W H Hudson and Richard Jefferies – about whom Thomas’s biography is one of the best.

With over 1,000 items, the archive includes letters, notebooks, family papers and artworks relating to geologist and theologian William Buckland. A hugely influential figure in academia, politics, science and religion, Buckland was successively Reader in Mineralogy and Geology at Oxford University, Canon of Christ Church, Oxford and Dean of Westminster. He was the first to name and describe a fossil dinosaur (Megalosaurus) and his research into an ancient hyaena den laid the foundations of the science we would now call palaeoecology. He was also a notable convert to glacial theory, and showed how glaciation rather than a global flood shaped the British landscape.

Dickson, Archer & Thorp were important Northumberland solicitors. The practice was established in 1817 and continued until 2005. At this point there existed an unbroken series of business records and clients’ papers dating back to the date of establishment and including records of the predecessor practices, making the collection a unique resource. We are unaware of the mass survival of records of another extant solicitor’s collection that charts the history of a 200-year old practice from establishment to closure; the wide client base of the practice – from probate cases of families of relatively modest means to dealing with the business of many county families and the Duke of Northumberland and the involvement of practice partners in the governance of the county and more locally in the governance of Alnwick.

David Lloyd George is one of Wales’ greatest politicians. He narrowly won the Caernarvon Boroughs by-election in 1890 and held the seat, although sometimes narrowly, until his death in 1945. In 1908 when he was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In his 1909 budget, known as ‘The People’s Budget’, he brought in a range of new taxes and tax increases to support social programmes but the measures were defeated in the House of Lords. Following an election in January 1910, which had been called over the budget question, the Liberals returned to power with Lloyd George continuing as Chancellor and the measures were passed. However, the threat of the Lords to veto similar provisions remained which led to another General Election in December 1910 and ultimately to the Parliament Act 1911, which restricted the power of the Lords to stop Government business. It was during this election campaign that Lloyd George made notes in pencil in this small notebook with a beautifully embroidered cover.

Two items relating to ‘In Parenthesis’, the war poem written by artist, engraver and poet David Jones (1895-1974), namely a proof copy of the completed work and a draft radio script. ‘In Parenthesis’ was an immediate success and won the Hawthornden Prize in 1938. It was adapted for radio by Douglas Cleverdon and transmitted on the Third Programme on 19 November 1946, with Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton among the cast. This had a pre-recorded introduction from David Jones and the second item acquired by the Library is a three page manuscript draft - probably the final draft - of this introduction.

Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' or 'Issledovaniia o prirode i prichinakh bogatstva narodov s primechaniiami Bentama, Blanki, Bukhanana, Garn'e, Mak-Kulokha, Mal-tusa, Millia, Rikardo, Seia, Sismondi I Tirgu'. The very first translation of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations into Russian was published between 1802-1806, was poorly regarded at the time, and is today virtually unobtainable.

The China Magazine was a short-lived periodical produced by and for the British ex-pat community in Hong Kong between 1868 and 1870. It is probably the first publication of any kind in the Far East to incorporate pasted-in original photographs. Only four volumes were published and there is only one known complete set, in Cornell University library in the USA.

The Church of Scotland Minister, Robert Blair (1699-1746) is an unusual figure in Scottish literature as he had a prominent reputation which rested on limited publications and virtually no original manuscripts. This volume represents the single biggest collection of Blair’s poetry and religious writings found to date, all of which are unpublished.

Smillie Archive, comprising the personal papers of Robert Ramsay ‘Bob’ Smillie (1917-1937), the labour activist and anti-fascist volunteer, together with papers of his father, Alexander Frame Smillie (1896-1984), and grandfather, Robert Smillie (1857-1940).

Richard Ford (1796-1858) was an English writer, collector and amateur artist. In 1830 he visited Spain and over the next three years in the country he made over 500 drawings. This copy of the suppressed edition of A handbook for travellers in Spain was described by Quaritch as ‘probably the most important copy of the suppressed edition of Ford’s classic Handbook, of which barely a handful survive.’ The suppressed edition is indeed exceedingly rare and Quaritch’s assessment of this particular copy is based on the fact that it is dedicated to the other great mid-19th-century writer on Spain and Spanish art, William Stirling Maxwell.