The Humanities Library’s special collections are held in the offsite store and can be requested to the library via SOLO. Please note: this only applies to Humanities Library collections; Weston Library collections must be used in the Weston Library.
Some Humanities Library special collections material has additional restrictions and will require staff mediation to request.
Academic staff may use Humanities Library special collections materials for teaching in the library’s Rare Materials Teaching Room.
Over the 2025 long vacation, please contact efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk to ask to see any items in the English Faculty Library/Humanities Library special collections.
Meyerstein Collection
The collection consists of the literary works and papers of EHW Meyerstein (1889–1952). Contact the library for further information and to see a handlist.
Old Norse-Icelandic collections
Books and journals relating to the study of Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature are held in the Rare Materials Teaching Room on the first floor of the library. Most of the items in the open-shelf collection may be borrowed. For more information about the Old Norse-Icelandic collection, see our online guide.
The library’s holdings in the area have benefited by the addition of the Turville-Petre Collection, the personal library of the late Professor EOG (Gabriel) Turville-Petre, Professor of Ancient Icelandic Literature & Antiquities at Oxford University from 1953–1975. Some of Turville-Petre’s books form part of the open-shelf collection, and the remainder are kept offsite and can be requested via SOLO. Turville-Petre’s personal library also includes a collection of offprints; contact the library to see a handlist.
Napier Collection
The Old and Middle English sections of the library were based on Professor AS Napier's (1853—1916) personal library, which was acquired in 1916. The Napier pamphlets include many scarce late 19th and early 20th century academic dissertations on Old and Middle English philology.
Pre-1850 Collection
The library has 251 volumes listed in Pollard and Redgrave's Short Title Catalogue 1475—1640, and approximately 9,000 pre-1850 volumes in total. The library has benefitted from various donations over the years, including the 18th-century books of David Fairweather Foxon, FBA (1923–2001).
Wilfred Owen Collection
This collection comprises Wilfred Owen's personal library, together with manuscripts, photographs, letters and an almost complete set of The Hydra, the Journal of the Craiglockhart War Hospital. The manuscripts, The Hydra, and a few other items have been digitized and can be viewed via the First World War Poetry Digital Archive. This collection has moved to the Weston Library; please direct enquiries to the Weston Library by email (special.collections.equiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk) or phone (+44 (0)1865 277150).
