Houghton Library’s collections of 19th-century British and Irish literature contain the papers of many writers and artists, with strong holdings of the Romantics. The collections feature:
- John Keats and his circle
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Mary Shelley
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- William Wordsworth
- Charlotte Brontë
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Robert Browning
- Charles Dodgson
- Rudyard Kipling
- Andrew Lang
- Edward Lear
- Walter Pater
- Sir William Rothenstein
- Algernon Swinburne
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- William Makepeace Thackeray
- Oscar Wilde
- Francis James Child’s papers on English and Scottish ballads
Houghton’s collections also include the papers of several 20th-century British and Irish writers and artist, including W.H. Auden, Max Beerbohm, James Joyce, John Masefield, George Moore, Dorothy Sayers, George Bernard Shaw, Dylan Thomas, and William Butler Yeats.
Books in parts, broadsides (particularly of poetry and ballads), and important association copies are also in the collection.
In all cases, collections of papers are complimented by in-depth collections of these authors’ printed works. For some authors, such as Charles Dickens, emphasis has been placed on their printed books.
Online Exhibitions
Such a Curious Dream! Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at 150
Let Satire Be My Song: Byron's English Bards and Scotch
"I shall ever be your dearest love": John Keats and Fanny Brawne
Accessing These Materials
Information about items in this collection can be found via HOLLIS.