The National Library's resources for eighteenth century studies were enriched by its acquisition in 1962 of the working collection of David Nichol Smith (1875-1962), Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford from 1929-1946. This scholar's research library in 18th Century studies, with an emphasis on English literature. Almost every major writer of the Restoration period and the 18th Century is represented and the collection contains many periodicals. A particular strength is the Shakespeare material with almost all the 18th Century editions of Shakespeare's work, as well as many critical works on the playwright.
The collection, including modern works, consists of approximately 9,000 books and 1,500 pamphlets housed within the Rare Book Collection. Letters and cuttings found among the books have been extracted for conservation reasons, but are available on request. About half of the collection was published before 1800, most of these titles belonging to the 18th Century.
The main strength of the collection is in the great range of first and early editions of all prominent and minor writers of the Restoration period and the eighteenth century. Dryden, Defoe, Swift, Pope, Boswell and Johnson are perhaps the most strongly represented, but there are many examples of practically every writer of that time. A special feature is the large number of literary journals, usually in original folio first edition. Shakespeareana is another strong part of the collections as the great majority of the eighteenth century editions of Shakespeare's works as well as critical works written about him are included.
The modern portion of the collection comprises recent editions of works by Restoration and eighteenth century writers and works about them, many of them having been edited by Nichol Smith himself. Many standard editions of the Romantics and of the Victorian authors, together with sets of scholarly research journals and numbered publications, are included.
The eighteenth century works are listed with other holdings of the same period in the Short-title catalogue of books printed in the British Isles, the British Colonies and the United States of America and of English books printed elsewhere 1701-1800 held in the libraries of the Australian Capital Territory. 2v. (Canberra, 1966): by W.J. Cameron and D.J. Carroll. A supplement, edited by I. Page, was published as v.3 in 1970. Copies of this catalogue may be consulted in the Petherick Reading Room at RAS 015.42 CAM.
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