French Studies: Special Collections

The Library’s Special Collections provide a rich resource for French Studies at the University of Manchester.

Our collections cover French cultural and literary studies, history, visual studies, linguistics, translation, and the history of the book.

This guide will identify collection strengths and help you access relevant material for your studies.

The Library’s Special Collections in the field of French Studies are of international significance and many map directly to areas of current teaching and research activity.

These include a number of significant printed collections for the study of French language, literature, history and culture. Our holdings of books printed in the 15^thand 16^thcenturies is extremely strong, especially for French literature and humanist scholarship. For the 17^thcentury, there is an outstanding collection of over 1,800 Mazarinades documenting the period of La Fronde in the 1650s. The most important of our printed collections is an internationally significant collection of newspapers, periodicals and books from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. This includes 15,000 proclamations, broadsides and bulletins as well as contemporary periodicals and newspapers (over 1,000 titles). The original folio edition of Moniteur (1789–1815) is present, together with an almost complete set of the Bulletin de la Convention Nationale (1792–95), more complete, in fact, than the set available at the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The collection of Robert Shackleton, Professor of French Literature at Oxford University, covers 18^th and 19^th century French studies, especially literature, philosophy and civilization, with some 3,000 works published before 1850. The major figures of the French Enlightenment such as Fontenelle, Voltaire, Helvétius, Diderot and d’Holbach are well represented. There is particularly good coverage of the long-running Jansenist controversy, for example. Other strengths of the collection include encyclopaedias, dictionaries and reference works, and travel literature. 

There are numerous medieval and Renaissance manuscripts written in both French and Latin, many of which are richly illuminated and of significant importance, including a 9^th century Homiliary from the Abbey of Luxeuil (Latin ms 12); a 9^th century Carolingian manuscript of Origen’s Commentary on Romans, from Beauvais (Latin ms 174); the exquisitely written and decorated Duchesse de Berry Bible, associated with the Celestine house of Villeneuve-lès-Soissons, early 13^thcentury (Latin ms 17); the beautiful Psalter of Joan of Navarre, 13^thcentury (Latin ms 22); a 13^th century Bible Historiée, or Bible picture book, containing forty-eight full-page images from Genesis (French ms 5); a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the Lancelot del Lac, Queste and Mort Artu sections of the Arthurian romances, from the early 14^th century (French ms 1).

There are also archives and printed collections relating to major French writers of the 19^th and 20^thcenturies, in particular Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jules Laforgue, Marcel Proust, Amable Tastu and Octave Mirbeau.

What are Special Collections?

The University of Manchester Library holds one of the finest collections of rare books, manuscripts, archives and visual collections in the world. These collections are mainly concentrated in the magnificent building on Deansgate, The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, in the centre of Manchester. They are also housed in the Main Library on the University campus and at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre, in Manchester Central Library. This resource introduces the different types of materials found in Special Collections and explains how they can be used to support your studies. For general tips on accessing digital and physical collections and visiting our reading room please look at our other Medium resources.

You are welcome to make use of Special Collections in your learning and research.

Due to the special nature of the material, we provide access in a controlled environment and there are some restrictions on use and access, particularly for fragile material or modern archives which may contain sensitive data.

Please read our guidance pages on the web for details.