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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. 205] Honored & dear Sr. I received yours. I have not been unmindful of observing the superfice & the bowels too of the earth, since I came into the country. & have collected a good deal in relation to a theory thereof, & a confirmation of what I advancd in the beginning of my Itinerary, of a visible proof of the earths rotation on its axis from view of its surface. but you know well Sr. there is nought to be done by way of publication unless one be in town. I design to be there 2 months every year when I get any preferment in the church. for then I shall abandon practise. for now tho’ I have all the business within 10 miles round & more which you will allow to be fatigue enough. I assure you I dont make above £50 pound of it. I desire to know if you have in your collection a coyn of Claudius the reverse Ceres august, a modius or the like relating to corn. I have one, on which I have wrote a dissertation showing it to belong to the famin in Claudius’s time mentiond by St Luke Acts XI. At this time the living of Allhallows in Stanford is near vacant, the incumbent Mr Rogers is in the last Stadium of a dropsy, & cannot live a quarter of a year, his worth was near £150 pound. I should be well pleasd to have it. I guess there will be great application, it is in the gift of the Crown. I beg Dear Sr. Hans you will exert your interest which I know is very great, in my favor. I guess the only way to secure it, is to be in time enough. I dare say you will be deny’d nothing either of the Court or Courtiers. I design to come up [fol. 204] to town in a very little time, but would have you speak first to present others. I shall watch the opportunity as nicely as is in my power. I am with my heartyest prayers for your health Dear Sr Your most obliged & most obedient servant Wm. Stukeley Grantham Sep. 24. 1729.
Read more- Letter 3668


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