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. 155
I took the Glister on Thursday night, which did not do very much, it having given me but one stool, and yet not a large one. I slept well on Thursday night, and on Fryday, had a great many little griping stools, I took diascordium yt night, and yesterday on the morn was a little griped. After dinner I had a prodigious large loose stool and two more tho’ not near so large … I went to Bed, the Humour was so sharp that ye passage was so sore it gave me a great deal of pain during ye time of the stool and some few minutes after. I slept late last night, and am pretty well this morning sometimes griped but have had no stool. It is very plain there is … a very sharp humour about me, which … be carried off. If you approve of it, I have already taken Rhubarb. I should think [that] would be right for me to take, manna, ye purging waters. If so I begg you would order it or whatever else you think proper for me, ye the servant yet … this letter may bring it down with him tonight. I conclude you will order me nothing yt need confine me to the House, for in every other respect I am very much …
Read more- Letter 2626
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |