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. 24] To give you some account at present how well the experience of those who have made use of our Engins for making sea-water fresh does justify that opinion you have given of the wholsomenes of water soe prepar’d I have sent you the inlosed printed certificate of severall persons well known in this Citty who have given their Testimony upon their own Tryals. I doe not doubt but I shall receive many more of the like waters in a short time, and since they are all soe many proofs of the goodnes of your Judgm’t and of your intentions to promote the welfare of mankind I cannot but think both these and such others as may be given hereafter will be noe improper present from Sr. Your obliged & humble servant. R. Fitzgerald March ye 11th 1686
Read more- Letter 3935
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |