Welcome to The Manuscript Society

The Mission of the Manuscript Society is to encourage the collection and preservation of manuscripts and documents; to stimulate and aid collectors in their various collecting specialties; to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge among collectors, scholars, dealers and the general public; and to promote the highest professional and ethical standards.

Featured

Manuscript Mondays featured image.

Manuscript Mondays

The Manuscript Society is hosting monthly webinars on topics for collectors.  Each hour long webinar provides an opportunity to peek behind the scenes of valuations, writing & publishing, purchasing/selling, auctions and more.

Faneiul Hall in Boston, MA.

2026 Annual Meeting – Boston!

Join us in Boston for the Manuscript Society’s next Annual Meeting, taking place May 27–31, 2026. This year’s meeting coincides with Boston 250, the city’s commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Pictures from the Manuscript annual trip to Oxford & Cambridge.

2025 Cambridge / Oxford Trip Recap

Over several days, Manuscript Society members explored some of the cities’ most storied libraries, museums, and archives—places that hold centuries of history and some of the world’s most extraordinary manuscripts.

Latest Digest

Digest – March & April 2024

Manuscript Digest: March – April 2024 – This complimentary e-digest, now published bi-monthly, covers significant acquisitions and sales, manuscripts lost and found, rare books and ephemera, document conservation, and more news in this digest […]

April 3, 2024|

Recent Posts

Caveat-emptor: Buyer Beware

Let the Buyer Beware: In the world of collecting, one challenge is authenticity. Is the item what it purports to be? Caveat emptor is a Latin phrase that translates to "let the buyer beware." It means that an individual buys at their own risk. Potential buyers are warned by the [...]

December 15, 2022|

Libraries of Rome – International Travel

The Great Libraries of Rome: October 22 – 30, 2023 THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT! Angelique Library, Rome, Italy [Seth Schoen] The Manuscript Society in conjunction with International Seminars Design Inc. presents a tour like no other! Tour the most beautiful libraries of Rome and see their rare [...]

December 14, 2022|

Kenneth Rendell: The Importance of Handwriting

As we have seen over time, trends in handwriting styles change. Yet, nothing has prepared us for the fast drop off in the teaching of handwriting. Not just cursive, but the ability of people to print. Somewhere along the way, communicate without writing with a pen or pencil has become [...]

November 28, 2022|

MM On-Demand: Spanish New Orleans & the Caribbean

New Orleans is French by name. The popular belief is that Spanish Louisiana was a relatively dormant period.  In fact, the impact of Spain upon both New Orleans and the greater region is far greater than frequently thought. Frequently pictured as a “backwater” Spanish province, it in fact reflected the [...]

November 16, 2022|

MM On-Demand: The Tile Club 1877-1887 (11/07/22)

The Tile Club was one of many societies that formed across the United States during the late nineteenth century. It included well-known artists; Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Edwin Austin Abbey, J. Alden Weir, and John H. Twachtman. The club was founded in 1877 riding the wave of [...]

November 7, 2022|

Cursive Writing and Reading History

Reading History in Real Documents Drew Gilpin Faust, Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University, shares a lesson she learned when students in her undergraduate history class could not read documents written by soldiers and others during the Civil War. Why could they not read them? They were written [...]

October 21, 2022|

MM On-Demand: Harding and Phillips Correspondence (10/03/22)

The Warren G. Harding–Carrie Fulton Phillips Correspondence: A tangled tale of ownership rights, romance, and archival ethics Warren Harding Carrie Fulton Phillips On July 22, 2014, the Library of Congress opened the Warren G. Harding-Carrie Fulton Phillips Correspondence. The papers, which had been closed for fifty [...]

October 3, 2022|
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