Search FNL grants since 1931

A group of six carefully selected books.

These eight pocket sized engagement diaries belonging to Virginia Woolf record in brief the author’s daily appointments. They directly complement the holdings within the Monks House Papers which were given to the University of Sussex in 1972.

One of the last letters written by Captain Robert Falcon Scott from his final camp in Antarctica was purchased by the Scott Polar Research Institute.

The Westmorland of Apethorpe Archive is of pre-eminent regional, national and international importance.  This status is confirmed both by its acceptance in lieu of tax and also by the fact that it is among the 120 estate and family archives that The National Archives considers to be the most sign

Captain Samuel Gurney Cresswell (1827-67), Arctic explorer and artist, and the first naval officer to cross the entire North-West Passage, is a major figure in the history of Arctic exploration. In Norfolk, he is regarded as one of the county’s great heroes.

Letters Patent granting arms to the illegitimate daughters of Thomas Peter Legh (1753-1797). The right to arms passes to all descendants of an acknowledged ‘grantee’ in the legitimate male line but the right must be established by recording their pedigree at the College of Arms.

This interesting book consists of seven didactic and moral tales, such as ‘The dangers of curiousity’,‘The little rattlehead’ and ‘Juvenile arrogance’, each illustrated with charming head- and tail-pieces: the horses frightened by a snake at the end of ‘Tale the Second: The little busy body’ are particularly attractive. The wood engravings are in the Bewick style, and have sometimes been attributed to Thomas’s brother, John Bewick, although the engraver is more likely to be another ‘follower’. Nothing is recorded of the book’s provenance, but the name ‘Miss Pridham’ (or Pudham) is written on p. 99. Only 5 other copies – 2 in the United Kingdom - are recorded in the English Short Title Catalogue.

Cherryburn in Northumberland, is the birthplace of Thomas Bewick. The Museum was established by the Thomas Bewick Birthplace Trust, and passed to the National Trust in 1991.

Since Archbishop's Abbot's death in 1633, Lambeth Palace Library has been home to most of his library, amounting to some 2,600 books and manuscripts. Several strays are recorded elsewhere, however, and this volume, in a contemporary binding with Abbot’s gilt-stamped arms, came to light in the dispersal of the rare book collection of Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC. The Library is especially pleased to acquire it because of the close relationship of the author to Abbot himself, because of the presence at Lambeth of the authorial manuscript of part of this text, and - not least - because of the interesting and complex textual and historical questions posed by the annotations in this particular copy.

Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), is the prototype of the 'courtesy book 'and the classic picture of the ideal renaissance courtier, prince, and enlightened ruler. This copy of the third Aldine edition is from the library of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (1540-1614), with his calligraphic signature in lower and outer margins of title, accompanied by a variety of mottoes and quotations in Greek, Latin, and Italian, and with over two hundred marginal annotations throughout the text in his hand. It contains 195 leaves, 8vo, in 19th century vellum over boards, in a clamshell box by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. In his 1995 study The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione’s Cortegiano, pages 79-80, Peter Burke discusses this copy in detail as a prime example of the influence of the book on the aristocracy in Renaissance England, describing the marginalia as 'the fullest and most systematic annotations on Castiglione known to me.' Most of the notes are in Italian, but some are in Latin (quotations from Cicero, etc.).

This impressive volume was the subject of a temporary export ban by the Culture Minister in 2012. The restriction was enforced because of the rarity of the item and its unique value for local and national historians.