RPS MS 333-369

‘Original letters’; 1813-1955, n.d. The principal part of the series, surviving from the Society’s archive since its inception, had been gathered together and arranged by 1910. Subsequently select later letters were inserted into the series, and the whole bound into these volumes on their incorporation as a loan in the British Museum. A small number of draft letters from the Society is included, placed in order with the letters from the addressee.

The letters are arranged in alphabetical order of the writers’ names as indicated below, except that business letters from firms such as Broadwood, Steinway, etc., are to be found under the name of the firm, and letters from concert agencies, e.g. Daniel Mayer, Concerts Colonne, under the proper name of the agency. An attempt has been made to put letters of married women in one place only (i.e. either under married or maiden name but not under both). These are the main points in which the present arrangement differs from that of Myles Birket Foster’s catalogue (RPS MSS 403-404). It should also be noted that the ‘supplement’ letters in Vol. 2 of Foster’s catalogue (RPS MS 404) have been incorporated into the main series, that not all the letters listed by him were found when the arrangement of the letters was checked, and that there are some occasional errors in the transcription of dates in Foster’s catalogue. Some additional letters were incorporated into the series, from the early years of the 20th century and from 1950-55, before binding and being placed on loan in the British Museum. Royal letters, or letters written on behalf of royal persons by private secretaries, have been extracted and are now bound in a separate volume (RPS MS 381) placed with the special correspondence below. Anonymous letters are placed at the end of RPS MS 368. RPS MS 369, incorporated into the loan circa 1980, is supplementary to the main series. For the remainder of the 20th-century correspondence, up to 1960, with a few earlier items omitted from the present sequence, see RPS MS 370-378.

Thirty-seven volumes. Various sizes. Red half-morocco bindings.