Thomas Pennant Barton Collection (Rare Books & Manuscripts)

Books from the Thomas Pennant Barton Collection can be found in either of the BPL’s online catalogs. You can search by author, title, publisher, former owner, or keyword. It is also possible to search, in a limited way, by physical features of individual volumes, such as binding elements, markings, and annotations.

Please note that not all of the items from the Barton Collection have been electronically cataloged yet. You can find a comprehensive list of materials in the Barton Collection in this 19th century published catalog of the collection, including many items that have not yet been electronically cataloged. 

For more info about searching Rare Books collections in general, or for information on how to use our online catalogs and other searching tools, see the Search section of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department website.

Browse for materials in the Barton Collection

To browse through the items from the collection that have been electronically cataloged, perform an author search in the BPL research catalog for

AUTHOR: Barton, Thomas Pennant, 1803-1869, former owner.

Results can then be sorted by date, author, title, publisher, etc.

Search for early English playbooks, 1594-1799

Most of the early English playbooks in BPL's collections come from the Barton Collection. To browse the items which have been electronically cataloged, perform a title search for 

TITLE: Early English Playbooks, 1594-1799

Filtering for "online collections" will retrieve only those items that have been digitized. Additionally, the main collections page opens a new window can be accessed through the Internet Archive.

Search for manuscript materials in the Barton Collection

To browse records for assorted manuscript materials in the Barton Collection, including correspondence to and from Thomas Pennant Barton, search in the BPL research catalog for

AUTHOR: Barton, Thomas Pennant, 1803-1869 AND GENRE: manuscripts

To limit your search to only the correspondence to and from Barton, search in the BPL research catalog for

AUTHOR: Barton, Thomas Pennant, 1803-1869 AND GENRE: manuscripts AND GENRE: personal correspondence

Search for items with inscriptions

To find items in the Barton Collection with inscriptions, such as presentation inscriptions, dates of purchase, etc., search

AUTHOR: Barton, Thomas Pennant, 1803-1869 AND GENRE: inscriptions

BPL has digitized numerous items from the Thomas Pennant Barton Collection; these materials can be accessed online via Internet Archive and Digital Commonwealth. A subset of the items from this collection, comprising the Early English Playbooks, 1594-1799, are available as well through their own Internet Archive collection page. 

Individual items can be browsed directly through the Thomas Pennant Barton Collection page on Internet Archive.