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:
SIR,-I have talked a long while of going to Jamaica
with the Duke of Albemarle as his physician, which, if I do, next to the serving his grace and family in my pro- fession, my business is to see what I can meet withal that is extraordinary in nature in those places. I hope to be able to send you some observations from thence, God Almighty granting life and strength to do what I design; but our voyage having been put off so often, I doubt it very much. I am glad to hear by Dr. Robinson that your elaborate and excellent work goes on so fast as to begin already to print the trees. Great feuds are like to be between the French and our philosophers about the magnitude of London and Paris, our alleging that London is as big as Paris and Rouen both together; and being urged by them to give some proof for what they say, I intend to print certificates from hearthmen here, and ingenious men there, that in London are 100,000 houses, and in Paris but 24,000. There is no less a dispute on another account. The French ambassador to the king of Siam, carrying a Jesuit with him, he made several obser- vations, and found that that kingdom was misplaced in longitude, to the east, about 22 degrees; but Mr. Hally says that he long ago found that out, and gave an account of it in the ‘Transactions.’ But I am mistaken if there were not something rectified about that a great while ago by some learned men. I suppose you have had an account of Dr. Magnol’s new appendix; it is but small and less worth than I thought, for when I was there he designed to simple the Pyrenees and Hortus Dei, or mountains of Auvergne, where are many curiosities. We are now mighty solicitous about the Jesuit’s-bark, or Cortex peruvianus, it being so good a drug, that they begin to adulterate it with black cherry and other barks dipped in a tincture of aloes, to make it bitter; but the bitterness of the adulterated bark appears upon its first touch with the tongue, whereas the other is a pretty while in the mouth before it be tasted. I am, &c.London, Jan, 29, 1786.
Read more- Letter 4555
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |