Sir Mark Aurel Stein: Family Letters

Stein had arrived in Lahore early in 1888 to take up a position at the University of the Punjab, and he made the first of many annual visits to Kashmir that summer. The letters to Ernst Stein therefore describe his second visit. The letters to his uncle are shorter; they would be among the latest letters to Hirschler, who died in November 1891.

Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).

The letters were discovered, with a number of unrelated items, in a cupboard in the Library in 1982; there was nothing to show when and how they came to the Library. The fact that letters 1-10 have a covering note in Stein's hand might suggest that he retrieved them after his brother's death in 1902. Letters to Ernst Stein and to Hirschler are quoted in Annabel Walker: 'Aurel Stein, pioneer of the Silk Road' (London 1995), as being among the Stein MSS in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.