• Thomas Patch, The Golden Asses

Welcome

The Lewis Walpole Library does not require a reservation, but we appreciate being informed in advance of any planned research visit since space in the Reading Room is limited. 

 
What makes the Lewis Walpole Library research experience special?
 

The Lewis Walpole Library, a department of Yale Library, set in eighteenth-century buildings with twenty-first century amenities on fourteen acres on historic Main Street in beautiful Farmington, Connecticut, offers a unique research experience. Researchers spend days in our beautiful reading room and evenings in lively conversation with other researchers who also work primarily on Britain in the long 18th century. The peaceful surroundings afford residential scholars time to process research findings and write without distraction.

The Library’s collections support study in nearly all aspects of British life in the long eighteenth century through the end of the Georgian era, with unsurpassed holdings related to Horace Walpole and his contemporaries. In addition, the archival collections of library founders W.S. Lewis (1895-1979) and Annie Burr Lewis (1902-1959) document an extensive personal and professional network of Anglo-American connections. Knowledgeable staff offer individualized support on identifying and using relevant collection materials.

The library welcomes researchers who will benefit from time spent using our collections. We also award four-week fellowships and two-week travel grants

In addition, the library offers public lectures, exhibitions and other programs


At the library....

Fellowships and Travel Grants
 
l is an interior of a wood-paneled library with a woman speaking with an electronic screen behind her; center is a view of the reading room with large table with three researchers seated looking at library materials; r shows a terrace with tables at which adults sit in conversation in front of a white clapboard house
 
The library offers a variety of fellowships and travel grants to support research focused in the library’s rich collections of eighteenth-century materials.
 
Residential Visiting Fellowships bring scholars from across the globe to Farmington for two or four weeks to undertake research in library collections on a wide variety of topics related to Britain in the eighteenth-century world. Please note the application schedule has changed. Applications for 2025-26 are no longer being accepted. The application deadline was November 1, 2024. 
 
Summer Fellowships for Yale Graduate Students afford students whose topic of research is supported by the library’s collections the opportunity to spend two, four, or eight weeks during June through August in residence at the library. 
 

The Charles A. Ryskamp Travel Grant is awarded on a competitive basis to a Yale College senior whose senior essay project would benefit from extended use of the Lewis Walpole Library’s collections. The grant provides funds for regular travel during the academic year to Farmington and more. 

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News

Full-length portrait of a woman, likely to be Mary Anne Clarke, wearing a white neoclassical dress and standing on a balcony with a curtain drapped from the left corner.
September 27, 2024
The new exhibition “The Paradox of Pearls: Accessorizing Identities in the Eighteenth Century,” Curated by Laura Engel, Professor, Duquesne University, is on view now through...
On the left is shown a colored portrait of artist James Gillray, in the center is title "Gillray, Royals and Censorship," and right is view of auditorium with speakers and panellists
September 10, 2024
The videorecording of “The Limits of Free Speech: Gillray, the Royals and Censorship,” lecture by Tim Clayton with panel discussion Steve Bell and Martin Rowson is now...
screenshot of Youtube listing for video
July 30, 2024
The video recording of the Twenty-Sixth Lewis Walpole Library Lecture: Music on the Dark Side of 1800: Listening to the Blind Virtuosa, Mademoiselle Paradis, is now available...