A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE
HODGSON COLLECTION IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON

Brian Houghton Hodgson lived in Kathmandu from 1820 to 1843 and in Darjeeling from 1845 to 1858. He was the British Resident in Nepal for ten of these years, from 1833 to 1843. During his time in Nepal and India, he amassed a huge collection of documents on multifarious subjects in a wide variety of languages. The bulk of the Hodgson Collection has been preserved in over 100 bound volumes, rolls and boxes in the British Library in London for nearly 150 years. Various scholars have dipped into it in the past, but there has never been a comprehensive descriptive catalogue and this immense resource has remained under-utilised as a consequence.

In 2001, Michael Hutt of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and David Gellner (then of Brunel University, now Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford) proposed that a descriptive catalogue of the Collection should be created, and successfully applied to the Leverhulme Trust for funding. Ten years later, due to the efforts of all involved—particularly Ramesh Dhungel, John Whelpton, Mark Turin and Burkhard Quessel—not to mention the additional funding generously provided by Michael Palin and the Friends of the British Library, we are ready to share this with the world.

At present, the website offers a 'browse-only' interface for users to view the catalogue entries. Additional functionality (search, images, etc.) and interactivity will be added in the near future. To submit comments, corrections or additional information concerning items in the Collection, please contact Michael Hutt.

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