The Lewis Walpole Library is the town’s [Farmington, CT) piece of Yale.
The library, at 154 Main St., is dedicated to the study of 18th-century British art and literature. It contains manuscripts, prints, drawings, paintings and decorative arts.
The Georgian-style library was left to Yale University by Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis and Annie Burr Lewis. It was originally built in 1784 for Revolutionary War Gen. Solomon Cowles. After the Lewises acquired the building as their home, the couple needed to add space to hold their collection of books and artifacts.
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Containing approximately 30,000 prints and drawings, the Walpole has the largest collection of 18th–century British graphic art outside of London’s British Museum. The collection includes at least two-thirds of the traceable volumes owned by Horace Walpole, the writer and son of England’s first prime minister. The library created an exhibit called “Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill” that has been displayed at the Yale Center for British Studies in New Haven and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Direct to Lewis Walpole Library Web Site
Direct to Lewis Walpole Library Digital Image Collection
Direct to Recent Antiquarian Acquisitions Blog from The Lewis Walpole Library
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