Chawton House Library
Chawton House Library is located at Chawton House,Chawton, Hampshire. Chawton House itself is over four hundred years old, and the recorded history of the land on which it stands stretches even further back. From 1996 to 2003, extensive restoration work was carried out on the house and estate, prior to the opening of Chawton House Library as a UK registered charity in 2003. The house is regularly open to visitors, alongside library readers, for tours and during public events.
The Library is now The Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600–1830.
Opened in 2003, it has a collection of over 9,000 books together with related original manuscripts. It is set in 275 acres (1.11 km2) of Hampshire countryside, and is used for conferences, filming and more recently as a venue for weddings. The Library works in partnership with the University of Southampton, and provides an important resource for the university's MA in 18th Century Study.
Chawton House Library is an independent research library and study centre which focuses on women’s writing in English from 1600 to 1830. The library’s main aim is to promote and facilitate study in the field of early women’s writing. Below is a list of some of the female authors whose works are to be found at the Library. The full on-line catalogue is searchable, and can be accessed via the Chawton House Library website.
The Novels Online project makes freely accessible the full-text transcripts of some of the rarest works in the Chawton House Library collection. These texts explore broad-ranging themes as satire, slavery, marriage, witchcraft and piracy. In bringing these little-known novels to a wider audience, it is hoped to stimulate interest in these works amongst a new generation of readers. The texts are completely unedited, and have been copied from the originals as accurately as possible. Even printer errors have been retained. This is an ongoing project with more novels and texts being made available online.
Events are held regularly at the library, covering a range of topics relating to the House and Gardens, and material held by the Library; these include:
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