Catalogue of the Correspondence of Amelia Opie

One goal of this website is to produce a full catalogue of Opie’s correspondence. Below you will find a link to our work in progress—if you have letter information to contribute please let us know.

Opie Correspondence Location Catalogue (In Progress)

In the meanwhile those interested in the letters might consult the following: 1) in 2002 Clive Jones compiled an Annotated register of letters of Amelia Opie, as part of his doctoral dissertation; this compilation is very useful, if you can obtain a copy. It can be consulted at the Huntington Library in San Marino, and at the Friends’ House Library in London, as well as online through The British Library EthOS collection.

2) David Sutton’s Location Register of English Literary Manuscripts and Letters: 18th and 19th Centuries (1995) provides a preliminary guide to letters and manuscripts in U.K collections. In the U.S., the Huntington Library and the Pforzheimer Collection of the New York Public Library, as well as the Magill Library at Haverford College and Swarthmore College Library (both in Philadelphia), all have significant holdings.

3) the correspondence of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft includes a number of letters to Amelia Alderson (later Opie) and can be found online at the Bodleian Library: Abinger Collection Online