The papers of James Augustus Grant, until recently in family ownership and inaccessible to most scholars, were sold at Sotheby's in London on 13 March 1979 and purchased (with the exception of photographs and annotated printed books) by the National Library of Scotland. They are now available for consultation in Edinburgh by registered readers; microfilm of selected portions can be supplied, also at the moment photocopies of the unbound letters (which will be bound in due course). They have been assigned the numbers 17901-26 in the National Library's sequence of manuscripts, and a description follows; an index is also available at the National Library, and this together with the description will appear in one of the future volumes of the Library's Catalogue of Manuscripts acquired since 1925. Of particular interest to African historians are the letters of explorers and others in MSS. 17909-10, of which those of Gordon, Kirk, Murchison, Speke, and Stanley are especially important; the African journal, MS. 17915, and sketches, MSS. 17919-21, both extremely significant not only for the Grant-Speke expedition, but also for the culture and history of East Africa; and (from a later period) the papers of Grant's son in South and Central Africa, MSS. 17907 and 17918.