Additional manuscripts

The Additional manuscripts are a collection of manuscripts stored at the British Library. The collection was started at the British Museum in 1756 and resided there until the formation of the British Library in 1972. They form by far the largest collection of manuscripts at the library, and comprise all the manuscripts acquired by gift, purchase or bequest since 1756 that are not part of the "closed" collections or other named "open" collections. Because the collection was originally thought of as a continuation of the Sloane manuscripts collection (numbers 1—4100) the "Additional manuscripts" collections start with number 4101.

The library maintains a series of catalogues and indexes to the Additional series. These catalogues have been published in 5-year volumes which also include catalogues for the other open collections of the library.

Manuscripts in this collection have been used extensively as references in later works. In the nineteeth century, British scholars (e.g., in the Dictionary of National Biography) assumed that the collection was so well known that a reference to "Addit. MS" was sufficient to name the collection without further reference.

Some subsets of the "Additional" series have been indexed separately. These include:

• The Gladstone Papers
• The Cecil of Chelwood Papers
• The Yelverton Manuscripts
• Lord Chamberlain's Plays (from the early 19th century)
• The Blenheim Papers
• The Petty Papers
• The Shaw Papers