Playne Collection

The Playne Collection comprises approximately 500 books and 22 boxes of pamphlets and press cuttings and some manuscripts about the First World War. The collection was created by Caroline Elisabeth Playne (1857-1948) in connection with her studies of the Pre-War and War period, 1889-1918, and given to the Library by her in 1938. Caroline Playne was a pacifist actively involved with peace movements before and during the Great War. Her writings reflected an interest in the role of the media, in its widest sense, in creating a cultural anticipation and acceptance of war.

The Collection contains monographs about the War, including the time leading up to it (from 1870) and the results of the War as well as military, social and political history pertaining to the War years; personal diaries and recollections; pacifist writings; some belles lettres (e.g. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front; Poems from Punch, 1909-1920). Many of the books were published during the War or immediate post-War years, with a complete date range from 1895 to 1938. Most are in English, with some in French (e.g. works by Maurice Barrès) and German (e.g. two issues of Die neue Rundschau, Jan. - Feb. 1916). There are also pacifist pamphlets from the War years. The Collection includes four monographs by Caroline Playne, with her signature on the title pages: The Neurosis of the Nations (1925); Bertha von Suttner and the Struggle to Avert the World War (1936); Society at War, 1914-1916 (1931) and Britain Holds On, 1917, 1918 (1933).

The books are recorded in the main library catalogue. For an overview of the collection, do a mixed classmark search on [Playne].

The manuscripts, pamphlets and press-cuttings have also been described online as part of the archives catalogue.

For further biographical detail see the entry by Sybil Oldfield in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Related collections within the Senate House Library: Prothero Collection and the History Collection.

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