Subject Strength: General
18th Century Collection
Covers subjects including the penal system, education and the constitution. Highlights include the famous treatise by the enlightenment thinker John Locke.
19th Century Collection
Broad in subject, including works by R. Browning, A. Tennyson, and C. Dickens. Features first editions of Lewis Carroll's last novel for children, Sylvia and Bruno.
20th Century Collection
Includes significant amount of material relating to World War II, literature by Siegfried Sassoon and local history in the form of H. C. Pawson's Cockle Park Farm.
21st Century Collection
Chiefly books by private presses, in limited print-runs, or with interesting provenance. Includes Q. Bajac's Q. L'Image R�v�l�e: L'Invention De La Photoggraphie.
Clarke (Edwin) General Archive
Cuttings, illustrations, and historic documents collected by Edwin Clarke. Subjects range from Victorian 'freakshow' acts to portraits of Charlotte Bront�.
Clarke (Edwin) Miscellaneous Collection
Largely 20th century material but featuring items dating back to 1655. A collection with a strong bias towards the occult, ritual and folklore.
Friends Collection
Rare books such as Robert Boyle's Tracts (1874) various pamphlets by Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, Newcastle songsters and other local material.
Incunabula
Comprises books which were produced in the infancy of printing, and specifically before 1500, including the first printed book on architecture.
Manuscript Album
Letters by people of local significance like Thomas Bewick, Richard Grainger, and George Stephenson, as well as household names like A.E. Houseman and Horatio Nelson.
Miscellaneous Manuscripts
Highlights include local history items relating to 19th-century bonds and deeds and to the coal trade as well as a collection of recipes, compiled in the years 1684-5.
Post-Incunabula
Contains English and foreign books printed 1501-1640, including works by John Stow, John Speed, and Torquato Tasso, as well as Robert Burton's The Anatomy Of Melancholy.
Rare Books
Strong in literature and local history, items date from the mid-16th Century to the present day including a German propaganda sheet and herbals by Elizabeth Blackwell.
Sandes Library
A valuable example of the kind of material found in a school library of the 17th to 19th Centuries, and includes some notable examples of early printing and binding.
