Felicity Henderson has noted that Robert Hooke's papers "are now scattered, and although many are known there are probably a significant number that have been lost or remain unidentified" (Henderson 2009, p.93). She has summarised what is known about the manuscripts, including papers owned but not written by Hooke:

• Robert Hooke’s archive (PDF)

Stephen Inwood mentions manuscript primary sources for Hooke studies in the archives of the Royal Society, the British Library, the City of London, Oxford University, Trinity College Cambridge and the Mercers' Company (Inwood 2002, pp.471-2). The following links lead to search results for the phrase "Robert Hooke" in these archives. It should be borne in mind that:

1. the surname may sometimes be recorded as "Hook" in the original documents,
2. the forename may be abbreviated,
3. the searches may also find records for other, unrelated, people called Robert Hooke, and
4. archives often hold items which have not yet been recorded in their online catalogues.

Sample searches:

• British Library
• Cambridge University
• London Metropolitan Archives, at the Guildhall Library of the City of London
• The National Archives, which holds the records of the Mercers' Company
• Oxford University
• The Royal Society of London

There are also Hooke manuscripts in other collections, including:

• Yale University Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (letter to Isaac Newton, 9th December 1679)
• Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Darmstaedter collection (letter to Isaac Newton, February 1678, and letter to Nicolas Toinard, 1st/11th December 1680; Vozar 2024)

Hooke at the Royal Society

The Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at University College London has digitized and transcribed extracts from the Royal Society's journal books, together with the rough minutes for the period of Hooke's secretaryship of the Society and a number of supplementary papers, which were found with the manuscript and include contemporary indexes. The folio comprises over 500 pages in all.

• Hooke folio online

The recovery in 2006 of this material, previously thought lost, has been documented by Robyn Adams and Lisa Jardine:

• The return of the Hooke folio (PDF)
• Rediscovering Robert Hooke: Lisa Jardine talks about the rediscovery of the folio (YouTube)

 
 Return to top | Go to home page

Richard Waller

Richard Waller (c.1660-1715) was Secretary of the Royal Society at the time of Hooke's death in 1703, inherited his papers, and published some of them in 1705 as the Posthumous works (see the Chronology of major works on Hooke). Henderson notes that he was "very close to Hooke, whose later memoranda entries record almost daily coffee-house meetings" with him and his circle (Henderson 2009, p.95).

On Waller's own death, his executors handed over just "a Part of the Papers" to Hooke's second posthumous editor, William Derham (Henderson 2009, p.97).

Waller is known to have had an extensive library, which was probably part of the collection of his descendants dispersed at auction in 1839. Attempts have been made to trace it, in case it retained some of Hooke’s manuscripts.

• In search of Richard Waller’s library

 
 Return to top | Go to home page