Finding Aids - Early Modern & Modern Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library   Tags: archives, catalogues, finding aids, manuscripts, modern papers, oxford university, primary sources, printed ephemera, rare books, special collections, theses  

The period 1500-2000 encompasses the department's major collections of 17th-century political papers and literary manuscripts; antiquarian and topographical manuscripts of the 17th to the 20th centuries; estate records, deeds and rolls from the medieval period onwards; private papers of individual politicians, diplomats, journalists, writers, scientists, scholars, churchmen and other public figures; and many miscellaneous collections of papers and single items.

Descriptions of 16th-18th century papers will be found in the newly digitized 'Quarto' series of catalogues, the Summary Catalogue (and its published continuation) and online; there are also published and unpublished calendars of some of the major collections of 16th to 18th-century manuscripts. Of the 'Quarto' catalogues, Ashmole, Rawlinson and Tanner contain descriptions of major 16th- to 17th-century collections; only Rawlinson contains significant 18th-century material (all before c. 1750). The 'Quarto' catalogues contain nothing post-1750. Catalogues of papers from the period will also be found in the unpublished continuation of the summary catalogues, which comprises descriptions of manuscripts acquired since 1975 (in a card index in Duke Humfrey's Library). There is also a series of separate catalogues of larger collections. This unpublished series is available in Duke Humfrey's Library and in the Special Collections Reading Room.