A list of Victorian manuscripts in the Clara Thomas Archives

The Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections have acquired a significant number of Victorian manuscripts, primarily letters, from four fonds: the Lady Victoria Welby fonds, the Victorian Correspondence fonds, the Elliot Stock fonds, and the Cameron Family fonds. The collection attracts scholars to visit York who need to examine one-of-a-kind letters and drafts of compositions; the original manuscripts must be consulted for watermarks that date the document and for deciphering blotted-out words.  With our focus on Victorian artists, critics, novelists, poets, philosophers, politicians, scientists, and theologians the collection offers our graduate students opportunities to study and publish interdisciplinary scholarship.  Citations of these manuscripts in books and articles serve to publicize York as a centre for Victorian studies.


Arnold, Matthew  1887

Baring-Gould, Sabine  1897 

Barrie, J.M.  1903

Besant, Walter  1884 

Birrell, Augustine  1887

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth  1888  

Bradley, A.C.  1899, 1900

Bright, John  1840

Brontë, Charlotte  (undated page of a letter)

Brooke, Rupert  1910–1912, 1914

Brooke, Stopford  1894 

Brown, Ford Madox  1870, 1876, 1890s 

Brown, Oliver Madox  1873

Buchan, John  1908, 1909, 1911

Burne-Jones, Edward  1893    

Caine, Thomas Henry Hall  1898

Carleton, Francis  1839 

Coleridge, Sir John Duke  1891 

Cowper-Temple, William Francis  1878 

Crane, Walter  1904

Dicksee, Sir Frank  1879–1884, 1889, 1893

Dobson, Austin  1885–87 

Doyle, Arthur Conan  1899

Ellis, Havelock  1908

Frampton, Sir George  1899

Froude, James Anthony  1894, 1895  

Galton, Francis  1890–98, 1900–1911

Gladstone, William Ewart  1877, 1894 

Gosse, Edmund  1893 

Harris, Frank (Fortnightly Review)  1889, 1890, 1892

Herdman, William Abbott  1894  

Hewlett, Maurice  1901, 1903

Hutton, Richard Holt (Spectator)  1880–1883, 1886–1891, 1897

Huxley, Thomas Henry  1884, 1885, 1887–1891

James, Henry  1892, 1911

James, William  1905, 1908

Jekyll, Gertrude  (undated)

Jowett, Benjamin  1880, 1891–1893

Kingsley, Mary Lucas (Mrs. Charles)  1885

Lang, Andrew  1889–1891, 1896, 1897, 1902, 1904, (one undated)

LeGallienne, Richard  (undated) 

Leighton, Lord Frederic  (undated 187?), (undated) 

Lethaby, William Richard  1916 

Linton, Miss E. Lynn  1886, 1887, 1899

Locker-Lampson, Frederick  188

Lubbock, Sir John  1888, 1891, 1891

MacColl, Norman (Athenaeum)  1896

Machen, Arthur  1898

Mackail, J.W.  1897

Macmillan, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander  1879–1885, 1889

Macmillan, George A.  1881, 1883, 1896, 1897, 1900

Martineau, Dr. James  1886-1889, 1896, 1897

Molesworth, Mary Louisa  1858

Morley, John (Viscount)  1877, 1886, 1909

Morris, William  1887 

Myers, F.W.H. (founder of Society for Psychical Research)  1888–1892, 1898

Newman, Francis  1892 

Newman, John Henry  1878 

Noel, Roden  1882

Oliphant, Margaret  1886, 1891

Paget, Violet (pseud. Vernon Lee), 1886–1888, 1893, 1895, 1903, 1904, 1910

Pater, Walter  1889

Poynter, Sir Edward J.  1897 

Primrose, Archibald  1877 

Procter, Bryan Waller  (pseud. Barry Cornwall)  (undated)

Rossetti, Christina  1881, 1881, 1881, 1881

Ruskin, John  1865, 1867, 1867, 1868, 1868, 1891  

Shaw, George Bernard  1907, 1908

Shorthouse, Mr. and Mrs J. Henry  1882–1873, 1889-1891, 1903

Spencer, Herbert  1882, 1885, 1890

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn  1877 

Stephen, Lady and Sir Leslie  1889–1893,1895, 1896, 1903

Tyndall, John  1887-1893

Wallas, Graham  (undated)

Ward, Mary Arnold (Mrs. Humphry)  1887, 1888, 1890, 1892, 1897, 1903

Watson, William  1898

Watts-Dunton, Theodore  1890, 1894, 1903

Welby, Lady Victoria   [We lost count.]  

Wells, H.G.  1897, 1898, 1902, 1903, 1909, 1910

Woolner, Thomas  1873