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Library Collections
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Using the Library
Every year, researchers from over 30 countries make more than 20,000 visits to the Library’s reading rooms, and thousands more make use of the Library’s virtual services and digital collections.
Highlights from the Collections
Library News
The archive of American author Thomas Pynchon, considered by many to be among the greatest novelists of our time, comprises 70 linear feet of materials created between the late 1950s and the 2020s—including typescripts and drafts of each of his novels, handwritten notes, correspondence, and research.
A collection of medical remedies doesn’t seem like the obvious place for contentious or problematic texts. Yet in England during the medieval period, certain methods of healing could be controversial.
Six finalists have been named to the shortlist for The Huntington’s Shapiro Book Prize, awarded biennially for an outstanding first scholarly monograph in American political, social, intellectual, or cultural history.
Program Archive
About the Library
- One of the world’s largest collections of British medieval manuscripts, including the 15th-century Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
- One of 12 surviving copies on vellum of the Gutenberg Bible, the jewel of the second-largest collection of incunabula (15th-century printed books) in the United States.
- A leading repository for Americana, including extensive holdings for Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson, and such gems as the original manuscript of Franklin’s autobiography.
- Extensive collections on the American West, including the great 19th-century photographic surveys and original sources about overland migration, industry and transport, and Native Americans.