Nelson & His World

Has anyone used the library at the NMM to view Nelson letters, or similar? I'm just wondering how easy it is to access them or if there are any restrictions.

Vicki,

I'm afraid I haven't recently (although I did work at the Museum one summer in the dim and distant past of the 1970's, and on occasion was allowed into the Caird Library!) I am also a life member of the NMM. However, I'm sure others here have, and they will very likely reply in due course.

As you probably know they have just had a revamp of the museum and library, with the opening of the new Sammy Ofer wing. In the meantime (Greenwich? ) I would suggest perusing their website, where I see they are now marketing themselves as the Royal Museums Greenwich:

http://www.rmg.co.uk/

Vicki!

One of the features of the new Sammy Ofer wing arrangements for the NMM Caird library is that documents are now/should be ordered on line in advance of any visit. This means that what is available can be seen in the on-line catalogue on the NMM web site which then has a link which enables you to order up the collection(s) you want (three allowed at any one time) for a particular day. I saw John Sugden there a fortnight ago going through masses of Nelson documents doing a final check of the references in his second Nelson volume expected in the late summer - so there should be plenty of material that is accessible. The on-line catalogue will tell you.

Brian

After looking at the website fully I've actually ordered a few scanned copies of some of the letters. I will try and go there when I get a chance.

Brian, I've been reading through the letters at the British Library fairly regularly, and have never seen them in use apart from for a couple of weeks solidly just before christmas (they also have a system where you can reserve in advance, unless of course someone else has!). I wonder if that was also John Sugden. I'm longing for his second volume to come out. I've heard such good things about the first, but I don't want to read it unless I have the second to move on to straight after!

Thanks for the replies