How is a rare book about swimming connected to an important early European map of Australia and American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin? Find out in this blog.

Pamphlets, journals and other publications documenting many strands of American radicalism.

975 books, including many relating to the essayist and poet Charles Lamb and his circle and books by or relating to the poet Edward Thomas.

2121 books, pamphlets, programs, periodicals and plays published between 1755 and 1972. 

Lavishly illustrated travel books had long been popular in Europe and North America when the same American team that produced Picturesque Canada established the Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company in Wynyard Square, Sydney, on Gadigal Country, in 1885.

About 440 books published by William Pickering between 1820 and 1854 including reprints of classics and seventeenth-century Anglican religious works, plus contemporary writers of his time.

Around 830 books mainly relating to Buddhism, but also to Hinduism, Indian history and Western philosophy, in German, French and English and mostly published 1870–1945.

About 15,000 books and pamphlets. The great strength of the collection is in Pacific voyages and early Australiana with many very rare items. Also manuscripts including papers of Joseph Banks, maps and pictures.

80 oral history interviews with musicians, dancers and others, and recordings of songs and performances, as well as sheet music, imprints and personal papers.

About 1225 books published in France from the 17th-20th centuries, including the writings of great, popular and minor writers.

14,000 books and pamphlets about numerous subjects such as Australian poetry and literary criticism, English and Scottish poetry, Greek and Roman literature, Australian history, labour history and religion. Also includes personal papers of Pearce and other Australian writers.

Personal papers including correspondence, manuscripts of books, newspaper articles, lectures and material concerning writers, artists and literary organisations as well as about 2500 books published 1900–60, many inscribed by the authors.