The collection consists of six of Walter Crane’s sketchbooks. Two of the sketchbooks date to the summer of 1864, and the remaining four date to the summers of 1897, 1901, 1903, and 1905. The collection’s dates offer a contrast between Crane’s early and later career as an artist. The contents feature his preliminary designs, pictorial observations of the world, and textual notes.

Crane’s sketchbooks are filled with landscapes and towns and building interiors and exteriors from Crane’s life in England and travels to Ireland. Aligned with Crane’s commissioned and published works, the sketchbooks include sketches for his book designs, a heraldic eagle, and plans for a panel painting or frieze. Flora, fauna, men, women, children, Greco-Roman figures and architectural details make up the wide range of subjects covered in the sketchbooks.

The drawings range from Crane’s rough ideas expressed in his preliminary sketches and line drawings to tonal drawings and studies of individuals, landscapes, and flowers. The drawing techniques play with perspective, topography, bodily gesture, facial expression, tone, line, outline, form, and colour.

Crane’s notations appear throughout the sketchbooks, including on the sketches themselves and on their facing pages. He also hand-wrote inspirational excerpts from poems and essays which includes quotes from Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin works.

Between blank and torn pages, the medium for the textual and visual content shifts between pen and pencil on paper. Several landscapes are full-page watercolours on paper.

This copy of Ann Hobbs' The Discarded Daughter, a Tragedy was made from Philipps MS.23881 in the British Museum by J. Smith.

Letters and papers relating to employment with the Hudson’s Bay Company. These include letters of appointment, official announcements, lists of officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and an inventory the posts and officers in the Albany River district.

Affidavit concerning Bown’s controversy with the Hudson’s Bay Company over the printing by the Nor’-Wester of a petition on memorial dealing with imprisonment of Dr. John Schultz. It is dated 10 July 1868 at St. Cloud Minn. Note: Part of Exhibit A, and all of Exhibits B, C, & D are missing.

Fonds consists of manuscript of "Kedem, or the Garden of Eden, by Symkabeta", 1869. The manuscript includes an article on Mountain worship by W. Simpson and critical letters from Thomas Scott, 1869.

Collection consists of menus acquired individually by the library. Menus date back to 1877, but most of the menus are twentieth century. The bulk of menus are from Montreal-area restaurants and hotels, representing French, Quebecois, and other styles of cuisine such as Indian. Some menus are from specific dinners given at hotels, special events, or in honour of dignitaries, such as a dinner for Edward, Prince of Wales, 1919. A subset of menus relate specifically to travel and include train dining car menus and steamship menus.

The fonds contains professional and private correspondence from Emma Albani, the first Canadian-born singer of international fame, to Parisian publisher Henri Heugel.

Most of Lighthall's varied interests and activities are represented in his papers which fall into a number of series. There is a general series of letters and papers 1875-1954 which includes much but not all of the correspondence. There are letters from many Canadian literary figures (before ca 1940) including Duncan Campbell Scott, Charles Sangster, Charles G.D. Roberts, W.W. Campbell and Stephen Leacock. Others represented in this series include Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir William Van Horne (about his and Lighthall's collections of pictures). Among the subjects covered are the McCord Museum, the Chateau de Ramezay, the McGill University Library, the Manitoba School question, conscription and imperial government. There are series for the Canadian Author's Association, the Canadian Union of Municipalities, the Metropolitain Parks Commission, the Great War Veterans Association and the Royal Society of Canada. The papers of the Montreal Armenian Relief Committee (1920s) are included, as are Captain MacKenzie Forbes' files from the Military Hospitals Commission, 1917. There is some material on various legal cases in which Lighthall was involved including some Indian land claims. There is a series of personal financial records and some material on Church Union (ca 1910). There is a large series of documents, both originals and copies dealing the region of Huntingdon, Chateauguay and Beauharnois. Most of Lighthall's literary works are represented in draft and/or annotated form including The False Chevalier (1898) and The Master of Life (1908). There is as well Lighthall's index of Canadian author's pseudonyms (ca 1880-ca 1900). In addition to this manuscript material, there is the Lighthall collection of books which contains some three hundred volumes of metaphysics, history and poetry many of which are either inscribed to W.D.L. or contain his annotations.

This volume contains 30 stories by Giovanni Guerini translated from Italian by Robert Sinclair.

For purposes of arrangement, the Lighthall Papers have been treated as one unit. However, for purposes of descriptions, they have been divided into two parts: the W.D. Lighthall papers and the Lighthall Family papers.

The papers of W.D. Lighthall are divided into a number of different series: an Original Series, Letters and Papers, 1881-1946, and a New Series, Letters and Papers, 1865-1954. The greater part of the correspondence is to be found in these two series.

Although more than forty members of the Lighthall and allied families are represented in the collection, only those with significant bodies of papers are mentioned here, including Cybel Wilkes Lighthall, Alice M. S. Lighthall, Anne Dean Lighthall, W. F. Lighthall, and the Reverend Dr. Henry Wilkes, among others.