18th- and 19th-century British Manuscripts at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library: Home

This guide is intended to assist you in identifying and requesting 18th- and 19th-century English, Scottish, and Irish manuscripts in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library's collections. Please use the tabs above to navigate the different pages of this guide.

Three of the tabs provide listings of (and instructions for identifying) 18th- and 19th-century English, Scottish, and Irish manuscripts in Spencer's collections:

• British Literary Manuscripts (containing a list of 18th- and 19th-century British, Scottish, and Irish manuscript collections that are at least one box in size)
• British Non-Literary Manuscripts (containing a list 18th- and 19th-century British, Scottish, and Irish manuscript collections that are at least one box in size)
• Bound Manuscripts and Very Small Collections (containing instructions for identifying pertinent bound manuscripts and collections of less than a box in size)

A fourth tab provides instructions for creating your Aeon Researcher Account (required of all Spencer Library patrons) and for using this account to submit electronic paging requests (which is how material is requested for use in our reading room).

To identify printed materials (books, periodicals, broadsides, etc.) for this region and time period, please search KU's online library catalog at: http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First.  You may find it helpful to conduct an "author" (last name, first name) search or a "title" search and then sort the results by date (earliest to most recent) to identify items held at the Spencer Research Library.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions, especially if you are looking for manuscript items outside of the scope of what is covered in this guide (e.g. other regions and centuries).

Elspeth Healey, Special Collections Librarian, (ehealey@ku.edu)
Karen Cook, Special Collections Librarian, (kscook@ku.edu)

We can help with your research questions -- contact us by chat, phone, email, text or at a Research Help desk.