Welcome to The Sloane Letters Project
A pilot of this project, Sir Hans Sloane’s Correspondence Online, was first launched at the University of Saskatchewan in 2010 to coincide with the 350th anniversary of Sir Hans Sloane’s birth. The project was renamed The Sloane Letters Project when it moved to this site in 2016.
The correspondence of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) consists of thirty-eight volumes held at the British Library, London: MSS 4036-4069, 4075-4078. The letters are a rich source of information about topics such as scientific discourse, collections of antiquities, curiosities and books, patients’ illnesses, medical treatments and family history. Most of the letters were addressed to Sloane, but a few volumes were addressed to others (MSS 4063-4067) or written by Sloane (MSS 4068-4069).
So far, we have entered descriptions and metadata for Sloane MSS 4036-4053 and 4075, as well as several letters from each of the following: Sloane MSS 4054-4055, 4066, 4068-4069 and 4076. Several of these entries also include transcriptions. Further entries and transcriptions are being made available gradually.
Please, explore the website and database. You can search through the letters, learn about Sir Hans Sloane or the letters written to him, and peruse blog posts about interesting letters!
Random Letter
Author:Recipient:
Fol. 110
Mr … perfects in ye use of your medicines prescribed all but ye … instead of which I have ordered ye diet drink and ye … alternatively, for he has but one stool a day and that not loose.
hectic and assault of fever nightly. no sweats. losing flesh.
…I am altogether of ye opinion Sr Hans, that ye country would do him more good than we can. The patient chooses Camberwell, because he has rec’d benefit from that air before. Porters might easily carry him down stairs and a house…is not very fatiguing for a hour. This fine weather I bid’em open ye windows in ye middle of ye day, and ye air seems to refresh him: he is weak but not more than when you saw him last, and to my thinking ye stamina…are yet more firm, than that he should dye by ye way: but as I entirely submit to your sagacity I shall do nothing without your assent: his cough is considerably less than it was and, what I wonder at, without any increase in ye Dysporea. A fortnight ago I pronounc’d him dying; I have often thought of it since I am not yet certain, whether I ought to accuse artis vanitatem … however I shall make no more prognosticks but con’t to be diligent in observing and praying God for more knowledge…
Read more- Letter 2606
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |