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. 252] Pardon me Sir that I use this way, not being certaine how better to direct to you, to beg some mitigation of your severe censure on my tarditie, and not returning my thankfullness before now, for that your most acceptable Present of your late most elaborate and correct work… Which I sometimes (when ever I can find time) peruse with a great satisfaction as admiration, when I consider the multiplicity of your cited Authors, and from thence your great care, pains & judgement in researching, comparing and reconcileing soe many writers, weither as I may say, Litirate, or some allmost illiterate: which to doe and bring to this perfection, I am very sensible hath cost you noe small labour in compileing; and hope, with the rest of the world, that it is but as a fore-runner, instance and a farther promise from you of your excellent History, which you by this prospect which you have been pleas’d to open, have made us more earnest for and disirous of, then ever. May you live to enrich the world therwith; enjoy all happyness and prosperitie; and direct me which way or wherein I may prove serviceable to you…
Read more- Letter 0418
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |