Search FNL grants since 1931

John Wilson (1785-1854), the author and journalist, who usually wrote under the pseudonym ‘Christopher North’, was among the pre-eminent Scottish literary figures of his day. He is principally known as one of the founders of the right-wing Blackwood's Magazine and as a poet and literary critic, but was also Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh for over thirty years, an Advocate, orator and sportsman.

The material is of particular importance for the insight it provides into Wilson’s formative years and his relations with his family as well as his literary activities.

The National Library of Scotland has significant holdings of sources for Scottish military history, but most are the work of the gentry or aristocracy.

The most important contemporary account of the life of Archbishop Thomas Becket,  murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in December 1170 and canonised in April 1173, was written by his closest friend, companion and secretary, Herbert of Bosham (c.1120-c.1194).

The acquisition of this exceptional collection of letters from Iris Murdoch to Sir Leo Pliatzky, Permanent Secretary at the Department of Trade and knighted in 1977, will ensure that important documents illustrating the literary, political and philosophical zeitgeist of mid to late twentieth cent

Iris Murdoch wrote the 9 undated autograph letters to Wallace Robson, together with 11 poems, between March 1952 and March 1954. Murdoch met Robson in 1950 when he was Fellow in English at Lincoln College Oxford.

Iris Murdoch wrote the 9 undated autograph letters to Wallace Robson, together with 11 poems, between March 1952 and March 1954. Murdoch met Robson in 1950 when he was Fellow in English at Lincoln College Oxford.

The sequence of letters to Rachel Fenner comprises about 215 autograph letters, together with 85 autograph postcards and other notes from Iris Murdoch written between 1964 and 1993.

Hester Lynch Piozzi (formerly Thrale, née Salusbury) is well known as the friend of Dr Samuel Johnson, and the hostess of a brilliant literary circle.

Haringey Archive includes a significant collection of manorial documents and court rolls for the Manor of Tottenham.

This edition of Delightes is bound with another slim household recipe book, A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, which is anonymous but may also be one of Plat’s works--the two certainly were commonly bound together after this 1611 edition. Delightes was probably first published in 1600 and A Closet in 1602, and the two were repeatedly republished through the first three quarters of the seventeenth century. Both are now rare, with the earliest surviving edition of A Closet being that published in 1608.