Books, Pamphlets and Periodicals

Senate House Library has an enormous quantity of books, pamphlets and periodicals in its Special Collections. The bulk them belong to the Named Special Collections, but many more are part of the Library’s historic stocks of rare and specialist material donated and purchased since the foundation of the Library as the University of London Library in the 1870s. Many of the titles held in Special Collections date from the hand press period, and the Library has around 45,000-50,000 books and pamphlets published before 1800, including around 133 incunabula. In addition others are held in Special Collections by virtue of their rarity or because they form part of a named collection, the total amounting to c. 260,000 items.

Named Special Collections might be extremely large, such as the Goldsmiths’ Library of Economic Literature which has about 70,000 items, and is of international significance owing to its comprehensiveness, its published catalogue and its online (and microform) presence shared with the Kress Library of Harvard University in the form of The Making of the Modern World, 1450-1850. Or they might be far more modest such as the Henry Arthur Jones Collection, of around 75 items.

In subject the holdings of Special Collections range widely, from English literature (first and fine editions) in the Sterling Library, via the history of London in the Bromhead Library, the history and Spain in the Eliot-Phelips collection and on to magic, witchcraft, conjuring, the occult and spiritualism in the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature. There is an identifiable continuum, from the Goldsmiths’ Library through to the John Burns Collection and on to the Ron Heisler Collection, of economic, political and social change spanning the early Enlightenment to the socialist and communist theories and experiences of the 20th century. Other themes include the history of mathematics in the De Morgan Library, the Bacon-Shakespeare debate in the Durning-Lawrence Library, early publishing in the Elzevier Collection, eighteenth century social, intellectual and theological interests in the Porteus Library and the western perception of Russia in the M. S. Anderson Collection of Western Writings on Russia Printed Between 1527 and 1917.

shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk 020 7862 8470