Letter 0524

Sherard updates Sloane on his Italian travels. He has enclosed a list of the books available in Rome and draws attention to those that are ‘wanting or scarce in England’. Sherard has managed to obtain about half of the books Sloane had commissioned and states that he shall procure more of them, having sent catalogues to most cities in Italy. Sherard requests that Sloane prepare a catalogue of books at Oxford. He offers his services to Sloane and his friends and will try to write him monthly. Sherard was a botanist and cataloguer. He worked for the Turkish Company at Smyrna where he collected botanical specimens and antiques (D. E. Allen, Sherard, William (16591728), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25355, accessed 24 June 2011]).