Nineteenth century letters - condition and access?

[keerawa]

In a story I'm working on, there is a collection of letters written in the 1830's that the narrator is granted access to at a historical society.

So - is this plausible? What kind of condition would these documents be in? Would they need to be in a sealed, special room? Would you need gloves? Any details you can give me would be much

Comments

[fisher_queen]

I've handled some first folios of Shakespeare with my bare hands, though I'm told that most rare book rooms have a glove policy. the amount of time we spent with the books during our grad student visit was really short, so the librarian heading it up said that it wasn't necessary. Offhand, I would guess that it would depend on the type and quality of stationary that you're looking at, along with how the letters have been treated over time. If they were preserved fairly early on, I imagine they would be in better shape. I have some books from the 1860's onward in my private collection which have definitely seen better days, but I've also seen some excellent examples of far earlier books that were donated to these places in enough time that they could be better preserved.

If someone more knowledgable about these things suggests that the paper copies of letters would be difficult to access or get clearance to, you might also want to consider having the documents placed on microfiche or microfile for your character to go through. Again, it'd depend on the historical society and their level of tech, especially since things are being scanned onto internet archives more and more these days, but that's another option that MIGHT be out there.