Manuscript collection development

This article describes the Folger Shakespeare Library's manuscript collection development policies. For related articles, consult Manuscripts (disambiguation).

Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Since all manuscripts are unique and there is a limited supply of privately-owned English 16th-17th century manuscripts appearing on the market, it is important to pursue as many manuscripts from this period as we can, while we can, particularly Elizabethan and early Stuart manuscripts. While the Folger has its share of priceless treasures, such as the Macro Plays, the Trevelyon Miscellany, the John Donne letters, and James I's warrant releasing Walter Raleigh from the Tower, our future lies in the development of our quieter strengths. The Folger is one of the few libraries in the world that can provide the level of depth required by researchers in these areas to support book-length projects. Important genres include:

scribal and autograph copies of political, religious, and literary writings
dramatic and theatre-related manuscripts
family correspondence and papers
letterbooks and individual letters
copybooks and writing manuals
commonplace books
poetical miscellanies and other poetry
cookery and medical receipt books
armorials and other heraldic manuscripts
inventories and account books
diaries
sermons

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

The manuscript collection's strengths lie in promptbooks, theatrical manuscripts--particularly the records of Drury Lane and Covent Garden--the papers of David Garrick, and literary and scholarly manuscripts relating to the editing and performance of Shakespeare. We will consider non-Shakespeare promptbooks when they relate to Drury Lane or Covent Garden productions, or to individuals for whom we collect as widely as possible, as our budget allows (listed below). We should strive whenever possible to add to our major holdings relating to the following families and individuals:

Booth family
John Payne Collier
Augustin Daly and his circle
David and Eva Garrick and their circle
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps
Elizabeth Inchbald
William Henry Ireland
Sir Henry Irving
Kean family
Kemble family
William Charles Macready
William Winter

Additional strengths and emerging strengths

These include manuscripts by or relating to:

Frances Abington
Viola Allen
Colley Cibber
George Colman (younger and elder)
Richard Mansfield
Samuel Phelps
Ada Rehan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (as theatre owner/playwright)
Ellen Terry

Shakespeare critics/editors/commentators (including doubters)

Delia Salter Bacon
Mary Cowden Clarke
Frederick Fleay
Clement Mansfield Ingleby
Sir Sidney Lee
Edmund Malone
John Bowyer Nichols
John Gough Nichols
Algernon Swinburne
George Steevens, and
Stratford luminaries Mary Rose and the Flower family

We have an enviable collection of letters by the bluestockings Hannah More and Elizabeth (Robinson) Montague, and in the future should be alert to letters by them relating to Shakespeare or Garrick. Our collection of correspondence involving members of the Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft is also robust, but rarely used, and is not a top priority.

Twentieth century and beyond

Twentieth century holdings include Shakespeare-related unpublished screenplays and scripts and an eclectic assortment of literary, theatrical, and authorship manuscripts relating to Shakespeare (largely gifts), as well as archives relating to the Folger Theatre, which are being added to the Folger's institutional archives. We are beginning to identify and target the archives of living (or recently deceased) Shakespearean actors and directors, and of Shakespeare theaters (see Shakespeare page). We should continue to grow in these areas. As a general policy, we do not collect scholarly papers.