Revealing and Exploring: The John Rylands Library’s Persian Manuscripts

About This Project

This project focuses on the outstanding collection of Persian manuscripts housed in The University of Manchester’s iconic neo-gothic John Rylands Library. The collection contains almost one thousand manuscripts, including a number of unique texts. Dating from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries CE, the manuscripts encompass a wide range of subjects and cultural traditions.

By cataloguing and digitising Persian manuscripts, we will honour the commitment of the Library’s founder, Enriqueta Rylands, that our collections: “shall be of use in the widest sense of the word”. This is one of the top four Persian manuscript collections in the UK and the only major Persian manuscript collection that has never been catalogued.