The purpose of the articles on this page is to highlight recent additions or improvements to the catalogue.
McKerrow Papers
Descriptions have been added to the Catalogue of an additional accession of papers of R. B. McKerrow, author of An Introduction to Bibliography, a text-book well-known to librarians. This small collection (Add. MS a. 684) is perhaps most notable for the number of letters it contains from representatives of famous American repositories, including the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and Harvard College Library. (1 March 2023.)
Housman Letters
Descriptions have been added to the Catalogue of a small collection of letters from the poet A. E. Housman to his sister Clemence and his brother Laurence (Add. MS a. 682). (17 January 2023.)
Housman Cuttings
Descriptions have been added to the Catalogue of a small addition to the Library's Housman materials, in the shape of a number of cuttings collected by Housman's friend Moses Jackson and his son (Housman's godson) Gerald Jackson, with a couple of items of related correspondence (Add. MS a. 681). (12 January 2023.)
Sketch of a College Lecture, 1830s
A description has been added to the catalogue of a charming sketch of John Wordsworth, nephew of the poet William, delivering a Greek lecture at Trinity in the 1830s (Add. MS a. 671). The sketch was almost certainly made by Henry Stapylton Bree, one of the pupils identified on the drawing, and, for a sad reason, its approximate date is easy to fix, since Bree, who was admitted at the College in 1835, died on 14 May the next year, before completing a full year at the College. The catalogue description includes a link to an image of the sketch. (8 September 2022.)
Photographs of the Viceroy's Visit to Gwalior, 1896
The photographs in this lavish album (SMIH 10/2), which documents the visit of the Viceroy of India and his wife to Gwalior in 1896, include some of the most striking images in the entire Library. The contents include, besides shots of various parts of the city itself, stunning portraits of the Viceroy, the Maharaja of Gwalior, and other British and Indian dignitaries. Descriptions of the contents of this album, which is among the papers of the Viceroy's son-in-law Sir Henry Babington Smith, have now been added to the Catalogue, together with links to images of them. (5 September 2022.)
Fog, Eatage, and Shearling Gimmers
It is probably safe to assume that the papers of the literary and biblical scholar William Aldis Wright are not the first place a researcher would expect to find posters advertising the sale of livestock in Yorkshire. But Aldis Wright's linguistic interests included English dialects, and these printed notices, which may have come from Trinity tenants, were collected by him for the sake of the dialect words they contain. Descriptions of these items, together with other philological papers (Add. MS b. 74), have now been added to the Catalogue. The descriptions of the posters (Add. MS b. 74/2) include links to images of them. (5 September 2022.)
Victorian Photographs of Cambridge
This album (Add. MS a. 655), which was presented to the Library earlier this year, was compiled by Richard Appleton, a Fellow of Trinity who went on to become Master of Selwyn College. The contents are mostly commercially-produced photographs of Cambridge from the 1880s, but there are a few other items, including a photograph of medieval arches uncovered in the cloisters of Jesus College in 1893. A description of the album, including links to images of the contents, has now been added to the Catalogue. (5 September 2022.)
A Kitchen Clerk's Autograph Book
This is a charming album of autographs collected by a College accounts clerk in the 19th century (O.10a.45). The contents are mainly signatures of Trinity members cut from letters or other documents, but there are also a few complete letters, including one from Tennyson. A description of the book, including links to images of the contents, has now been added to the Catalogue, and there is a short article about the book and its compiler on the Library blog. (5 September 2022.)
Hidden Talents
G. H. Hardy was, perhaps to the surprise of no one later in life, a precocious child. After a toddlerhood in which he asked his parents how to write numbers up to millions, he went on to become an eminent mathematician, Trinity Fellow, and mentor to the Indian mathematician Ramanujan. His father Isaac Hardy was the art master at Cranleigh School, and Isaac’s influence appears in two carefully crafted illustrations drawn while G. H. was still a boy. Links to images of these illustrations have now been added to an entry in the online Catalogue (Add. MS a. 49). One drawing depicts Harold’s coronation as it appears in the Bayeux Tapestry and the other is an illuminated manuscript page of the beginning of the Ten Commandments. (19 December 2022)