Special Collections & Archives: Autograph Letters Collection

Collections of separate letters bearing the signature of famous figures, put together for personal or family interest.

Pressed leaf from Tennyson's garden, part of the Rathbone family's autograph collection ('Oxford Literary' section). Reference RP XXI.11.1-16. 

The autograph letter collections are chiefly Victorian, and occasionally contain related printed or visual material. The main collectors are:

• The Brett family (170 letters, mostly addressed to William or Reginald Brett, 1st and 2nd Viscounts Esher, or their wives, 1843-1929).
• Canon Allen Page Moor (1823?-1904), collections presented by Sir Henry Cohen (547 autographs, chiefly English ecclesiastics, German orientalists and eminent 19th century figures, 1688-1901)
• Sir Charles Tennyson, stepson of Augustine Birrell (2 boxes, letters to and from Birrell, 1861-1935).
• Philip Henry Hope (233 autographs, chiefly 19th century, 1578-1924).
• Rathbone family of Liverpool (collection formed largely from letters received by William Rathbone VI and his family, Joseph Blanco White and Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge, with portraits and biographical material).

Finding and using

• Finding aid for Brett autograph collection 
• Finding aid for Allen Page Moor autograph collection 
• Finding aid for Birrell autograph collection
• Finding aid for Hope autograph collection
• Finding aid for Rathbone papers including autograph collection (RP XXI)

Two letters from Richard Cobden (Hope I.12-13 and RP IX.7.65) are included in the virtual exhibition The Letters of Richard Cobden Online project. RP.IX.66 is included in the Letters database (transcript only).