The Alston Collection contains an extensive body of manuscripts and other papers relating to Alston's bibliographical activities in the 1960s. In particular, there are drafts of An Introduction to Old English, notebooks, call slips, draft entries and proofs of the Bibliography of the English Language from the Invention of Printing to 1800, and material for a proposed 'Dictionary of Tudor English'. In addition, there are files of correspondence with libraries and contributors and drafts of lectures and academic papers by Alston.

The Alston Collection contains 1351 titles published before 1850 and about 500 post-1850 titles. The collection relates largely to philology and similar subjects, including spelling, grammar, phonetics, syntax, etymology, dialects, slang, rhetoric, elocution, belles letters, letter-writing and heraldry. There are a very large number of dictionaries and works on Anglo Saxon, Old English, Middle English, modern English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish and Swedish.

Among the many rare works, some of them the only copies known to exist, are the following:

• T'Hatvee Abd-oor-Rusheed-e, Moontukhub – ool – loghaut: Or a Dictionary of Arabic Words with a Persian Translation, Calcutta, 1808
• A. Armauld and P. Nicole, A General and Rational Grammar Containing the Fundamental Principles of the Art of Speaking, London, 1753
• John Ash, Grammatical Institutes, or Grammar Adapted to the Genius of the English Tongue, Worcester, 1760
• Giuseppe Baretti, Dissertacion Epistolar acerca unas obras de la Real Academia Espanola, London, 1784
• Noel van Barlement, Colloqvia et dictionariolvm septem lingvarvm, Belgicæ, Anglicæ, Teutonicæ, Latinæ, Italicæ, Hispanicæ, Gallicæ, Liege, 1604
• Pietro Bembo, Prose di M. Pietro Bembo nelle quail si ragiona della vulgar lingua, Venice, 1525
• S.G. Bordley, Cadmus Britannicus: Or, the Art of Writing Improved, London, 1787
• Encyclopaedia Americana: A Popular Dictionary of the Arts, 13 vols, Philadelphia, 1830
• Encyclopaedia Perthensis: Or Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, 23 vols, Perth, 1796–1808
• John Entick, The New Spelling Dictionary, London, 1765
• Robert Gentleman, The Young English Scholar's Complete Pocket Companion, Kidderminster, 1788
• Giuseppe Hager, Explanation of the Elementary Characters of the Chinese, London, 1801
• Jan Amos Komensky, Lexicon januale, Frankfurt, 1656
• A. Lane, A Key to the Art of Letters, London, 1700
• Manuel de Larramendi, El impossible vendico: arte de la lengua Bascongada, Salamanca, 1729
• Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar, London, 1762
• David Malcolme, An Essay on the Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland, Edinburgh, 1738
• Owen Price, English Orthographie, Oxford, 1670
• David Worms, Eisagoge, hoc est brevas et summaria in linguam Italicam introductio, Jena, 1595
• Edward Young, The Compleat English Scholar, London, 1679.

In addition to the books, there is a large quantity of xerox copies of linguistic works in European libraries collected by Alston over a period of 14 years.

The Alston Collection was purchased by the Library from Alston in 1974.

The pre-1850 books are kept together as a formed collection within the Rare Books Collection. They have been catalogued individually; the call numbers have the prefix RB ALS or RBq ALS.

The post-1850 books, which have also been catalogued individually, are integrated in the general collection.

The manuscripts are held in the Manuscripts Collection (MS 4871).

This guide was prepared using these references:

• Obituary, The Guardian online, 2 October 2011
• Who’s Who, London, 2009