Ogden Manuscript Collection

Manuscripts on a range of subjects including theology, law, language and literature. Paricular strengths of the collection are the early modern commonplace books and late 19th and early 20th century literary manuscripts.

Manuscripts acquired as part of the library of the linguist Charles Kay Ogden in 1953. The library contained around 50,000 printed books and manuscripts dating from the medieval period to the 20th century. There are around 150 manuscripts in the collection and they are arranged approximately by date.

Within MS Ogden there is a sub-section known as the "Bacon-Tottel" collection, so called because they were believed to have been compiled for Francis Bacon by his clerk William Tottel (or Tothill), although it is now known that this is not the case. This sub-group can be found under the reference MS Ogden 7. Note that not all of the Bacon-Tottel manuscripts currently have online catalogue records, but a list was compiled by Stuart Clark in 1976 (see bibliography).

Open

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Part of the C K Ogden Library purchased by University College London in 1953 with a grant from the Nuffield Foundation.

Some of these manuscripts are included in: N R Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries / 1, London / by N. R. Ker. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). A copy is held in Stores.