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Welcome to The Sloane Letters Project

sloaneA 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. 235] honorble Sr Hans I have waitted a good while for a Book neatly Bound of a second Edition on The small pox, with some additions, to confirm further The usefullnes of inoculation. But Mr Curl the Bookseller, hath used so many Delays, that I thought you would not find fault with me in sending you a stich’d one, till I have got another, which I am promised I shall have some day The next week, fitter to come into yr hands. mean time sr you may give yr self The trouble to peruse The addenda and if they meet with yr approbation , I shall be very much pleased. I have above a hundred pounds due to me, and the best part upon Bond, I have treated several patients, upon Credit, but hitherto, They did not come off. I have a House at Twickenham, which I have tryed to sell, for these two years last past, but did not succeed in it; so that, my hope is to dispose of it, next spring though at a Loss. My wiffe was in that house all the Last somer; she had some Boarders, who did basely run away in her Debt. By This account, Sr Hans, you may guess to what streights I am brought to. As you have been so kind as to favour me with yr patronage, so my most humble Request to you is, to afford me with yr Best advice and assistance all what I can propose to my self, for the present, is, that if Sr Hans would be pleased to take This present Low Condition of mine, into Consideration and amongst his Friends and Acquaintance, make a purse of fifteen or twenty Guineas, That would keep me out of The Tiry [?] Tryal, and enable me to spin The Time Till Those that are in my Debt, did pay me, and till I have disposed of My Twickenham House. If a Warr should happen, I don’t despair, but through yr interest, I might get into some employment. if no warr, I humbly conceive, that through yr powerfull Recommendation, I might be admitted into some Noble Family, as a Domestick Physician. All These schemes, I most earnestly recommend to Sr Hans’s most wise judgement, by which I am fully resolved to be throughly Governd. Sr Hans, I have no more to add, but to wish you a firm and Lasting Health, that you may continue Long in a Florishing state, to The joy of yr Relations, Friends, and of such as are Distress’d. which is the Hearty prayer of Honble Sr Hans yr most Devoted, most obedient, and most obliged Humble servant Phil. Rose. Decemb. the 11th. 1726.
Read more- Letter 3309


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