Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections

This album of scenic views of buildings, topography and architectural details seems to been assembled by an amateur or student artist with the initials H.P. They probably record travels in Denmark, France, Switzerland and Britain circa 1889-1890, but some of the sketches may have been made from photographs.

Group of songs, without music, collected into a single volume, possibly in France. Includes love songs, light songs, drinking songs, political songs. Napoleon is mentioned; sometimes gives name of tune or of opera.

Documents concerning Claude de Guénégaud's defense against an accusation of having falsified and suppressed the Rolls of 1654 and 1657 in France. Bound collection of 1 manuscript and 9 pamphlets, some with manuscript annotations.

This collection consists of a single letter written by an amanuenses for Claude Petiet, the French Minister of War, regarding backpay for the gendarmes. Written on both sides of a single sheet, the letterhead states "Liberte Egalite" with a motif in the middle for the French Republic.

Letters to and from Cloudesley Shovell (1650-1707), naval officer and Admiral of the Fleet for Great Britain during the War of the Spanish Succession, as well as an engraving and list of ships sailing under Shovell's command in 1703.

Collection of 72 separately written accounts of Parliamentary debates, political law-cases, diplomatic correspondence, etc., bound together in two volumes. Most (perhaps all) are near-contemporary copies of the originals.

Volume containing rules for conduct of a religious order. The dates covered are between 1673-1706; the date on the title-page is 1706; mentions returning to the original virtue of the order, and following the notes made by the first Directeur (Cochet) and the third (Joseph Biord, Directeur 1698-1700). 1752 is written at the foot of folio 36recto.

This volume includes 39 copies of charters originally dated between 1268 and 1544. These charters record property acquisitions, marriage settlements, and other financial arrangements made by the Campront family of Normandy, France.

This collection of manuscripts and published sources concerns the life and ancestry of Richard D'Olier of Dublin, Ireland, a leader in 18th century Dublin Methodism whose Huguenot ancestors emigrated from France to Ireland. Included is a memoir recounting the 1793 to 1794 imprisonment of the Richard D'Olier family members who were residing at Montauban in the south of France when the Reign of Terror commenced.

14 Italian manuscripts bound together, regarding the politics of Italy, the Church, France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire.

The Gaufridy Collection includes 1,880 manuscript letters and documents received by the Marquis de Sade's estate manager, Gaspard Gaufridy, and other materials from the Marquis, his wife, and other correspondents during the last quarter of the 18th century. The correspondence primarily concerns the management of the de Sade family estates. Also present are draft transcriptions in modernized French prepared in the mid-1960s by University of Kansas faculty and their students.

Copy of a treaty between France and Spain and Valais during the reign of Louis XIV, possibly copied in 1730. "Renouuellement d'alliance entre le Roi tres Chretien de France et de Nauarre d’une part et les louables Cantons Catholiques de la Suisse et la louable Republique de Valais de l'autre fait a Soleure le 9 mai 1715."

Bound book of poems, annotated. Fair copy (holograph?) made apparently to present to the dedicatee, "Madame la Comtesse Blanche Uggeri de la Somaglia" (Somaglia, Bianca Uggeri Capece della, 1743-1822, of Piacenza). The volume includes social verses with semi-biographical notes on the Parisians who inspired them and their own poems. There are also some political allusions.

This is a manuscript draft dated 1691 for Jacques Boileau’s book, Historia Flagellantium. De recto et perverso flagrorum usu apud Christianos (Paris: Joseph Anisson, 1700). The manuscript consists of text written in one hand, with marginal notes and insertions added in a second hand, both apparently the hands of Boileau’s secretaries. The marginal notes and insertions were incorporated in the 1700 edition.

Collection of primarily political and military letters and manuscripts written by Colonel John Armstrong of the British Army of the early 18th century, an engineer and expert on the Dunkirk fortifications in France.

This collection of sixteen letters is comprised chiefly of those written by World War I soldier James Hasson to his sister Grace. A native of Kansas, Hasson writes from France of his combat experiences with Company M of the U.S. Army's 51st Infantry, recounting German air raids, his hospitalization from machine gun wounds, his engagement in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and his company's bewilderment at cessation of enemy gunfire on Armistice Day.

"Correspondence secrète et familière de M. de Maupeou Chancelier de France avec M. de Sorhouet con[seill]er du nouveau Parlement." Correspondence of Mathieu François Pidansat de Mairobert, 1727-1779, copied into a volume.

Trader's personal records of Eugene Chauvet (journal, historical essays, natural history, family papers, logbooks, vade-mecum, child's sketches, and other related materials). The principal part of these papers is his "Ephemerides": a semi-journal particularly devoted to natural history (especially agricultural botany), his family life, illnesses, politics, logbooks of his travels, and to the history and description of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Author's archives: fair copies (typed). Includes manuscripts and correspondence. Topics include Paris, D. H. Lawrence, philosophy, etc.; the correspondence is mostly letters from Henry Miller to Graham Ackroyd.

Gridely taught English at the University of Kansas from 1964-1997. This collection consists of a manuscript entitled, "The Brownings and France: A Chronicle and Commentary," with the original French quotations. The volume was eventually published in 1982.

An llustrated satire in French against the acting and audiences at the Odéon Theater, Paris,

Fragments of poems, prose, and other items from 16th century French diarist Pierre de L'Estoile.

Primarily medical receipts (informal directions for compounding and administering folk-remedies); some horse-medicine; also directions for making pigments, for fishing, for removing ink-spots, for secret writing, for catching birds, for making varnish, for mending china...

Travel diary kept by Monsieur L'Abbe G, professor emeritus at the University of Paris, to the southern provices of France in 1758.