A joint project of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Library of Congress, the collection consists of reproductions of nearly five million pages of manuscripts and, in a few instances, rare printed materials found in some of the major public and private collections of England and Wales. American scholars in many fields of knowledge selected the works for their intrinsic importance to learned studies.

Set includes material from the Sloane collection. Entries from the British Library's catalogs of manuscripts precede each reel. Prominent works include four texts of The Canterbury Tales (Sloane 1685, 1686; Add. MSS. 5140, 35286), The Legend of Good Women (Add. MS. 12044) and Troilus and Cresseid (Add. MS. 12044). There is also a rich cache of religious and devotional material. CRL owns Parts 1-2 of this Series.

GUIDE: List of ancient correspondence of the Chancery and Exchequer preserved in the Public Record Office. List and Index Society, v. 15. This set contains more than 12,400 individual documents spanning the reigns of King John to King Henry VII and includes: state papers; correspondence of kings, bishops, Popes, knights, noblemen, royal servants, and Lord Chancellors; and medieval and other records.