Manuscripts Collection
Scholars from around the world conduct academic research in the Library’s nearly six million manuscripts dealing with English and American history and literature from the 11th century to the present, and with the complementary fields of European medieval manuscripts, Renaissance exploration and cartography, Latin American history, and the History of Science and Technology. Particular strengths include Middle English literature, English politics and law in the Early Modern era, the English aristocracy from the later Middle Ages through the 18th century, American colonial history, 18th century British and American military history, the American Revolution, the Civil War, the exploration and development of the American West, and California from its discovery to the present. English and American literary collections from the Renaissance to the present day are especially strong in material relating to 18th-century Britain, Victorian literature and the pre-Raphaelites, American literature in the second half of the 19th century, and theater and drama covering some 500 years. There are full archives of several distinguished modern authors.
More than 1,000 of the Library’s manuscript collections are described in collection-level summaries in our Online Catalogue and are searchable in OCLC’s WorldCat. Detailed descriptive handlists of nearly 200 of these are posted on the Online Archive of California (OAC) database at www.oac.cdlib.org, with more added as they become available.
A selection of the most famous and interesting items from the collections, including illuminated Books of Hours, the Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” Renaissance maps, letters and documents by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Thoreau’s autograph manuscript of “Walden,” records of the California missions, and manuscripts by Jack London, Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, and Charles Bukowski, are on public display in the Library’s Main Exhibition Hall; changing short-term exhibits regularly explore specific topics in greater depth.
Selected Manuscript Collections
Christopher Isherwood
Jack London
Joseph Rickard and The First Negro Classic Ballet
Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1894 (finding aid only in pdf format. Please note for information on additional finding aids see Contents of the Catalogue)
Additional selections from The Huntington's manuscript collection may be viewed in Treasures of The Huntington Library.
Many of the manuscripts in The Huntington collection are included in the Online Catalogue. For further details please consult the Contents of the Catalogue.
A traditional card catalogue, closed to further entries as of January 1, 1994, provides access to catalogued collections by author; further finding aids are available for most collections.
For information about uncatalogued collections, about manuscripts acquired after 1993, and about the most efficient use of the collections, qualified scholars are invited to consult with one of the department's six subject-area specialist curators.
Contacts
Mary Robertson, William A. Moffett Chief Curator, Manuscripts (British History)
Peter Blodgett, H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator, Western American Manuscripts
Bill Frank, Curator, Hispanic, Cartographic, & Western Historical Manuscripts
Jennifer Goldman, Associate Curator, Manuscripts and Institutional Archivist
Sara S. (Sue) Hodson, Curator, Literary Manuscripts
Dan Lewis, Dibner Senior Curator, History of Science and Technology
Olga Tsapina, Norris Foundation Curator, American Historical Manuscripts
Gayle Richardson, Library Assistant
Edward "Bert" Rinderle, Stacks Supervisor
Natalie Russell, Library Assistant
Melissa Lindberg, Library Assistant
Alison Dinicola, Library Assistant
Lita Garcia, Library Associate
Steve Tice, Library Assistant
Dixie Dillon, Library Assistant