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. 161
All the children have been out of order, this last week, but are now pretty well again; Lady Lucy, has had, the St Anthony’s fire in her arm; and a little fever in it, but is now quite well again, she was let blood, and tooke some physick, which has carry’d it, quite off. Harry and Lady Anne have have both had a purging ever since they came here, and indeed have had something of it, even on the road, but for this week past, it was to a great degree, and frightened me, tho’ Harry has never been in the least ill with it, so I think is not at all alter’d with it, tho’ t’as been so long upon him and I send for a Dr to them who told me it was a common effect of change of air, and was partly occasion’d by my having let them eat too much in their journey, and that t’was very happy it took that run, he has given them some little things, that have abated it, and agree with them. Harry’s is now very little and he is [ ] find Ly Anne is as gay as ever, but a good [line torn] before this looseness, she came into France. She hardly ever coughs and has no sort of fever and breaths well of nights, which she did not at home.
Read more- Letter 2644
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |