2025-2026 Lewis Walpole Library Visiting Fellowships and Travel Grants

Description

The Lewis Walpole Library is a renowned research center for the study of Britain in the long 18th century. Its collections include important holdings of eighteenth-century British prints, drawings, manuscripts, rare books, paintings, and decorative arts. Given to Yale by Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis (1895-1979) and Annie Burr Lewis (1902-1959), the Lewis Walpole Library is located in Farmington, Connecticut, in several eighteenth-century buildings on a fourteen-acre campus. The Lewis Walpole Library is a department of Yale University Library.

The Lewis Walpole Library funds four-week visiting fellowships, including the Lewis Walpole Library/American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies residential fellowship, and two-week travel grants to support research in the library’s rich collections of materials from the British world of the long eighteenth-century. 

Fellowship and Travel Grant Award recipients also have access to additional resources at Yale, including those in the Sterling Memorial Library, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Yale Center for British Art.

EXPECTATIONS: all Fellowship and Travel Grant Award recipients are expected to

• complete fellowships within the fellowship year (June 1 through May 31). 
• be in residence at the library
• be free of other significant professional obligations during their stay
• take their fellowship in one uninterrupted period 
• focus research substantially on the Lewis Walpole Library’s collections

AWARD FUNDING INFORMATION:

• the round-trip cost of travel between the Lewis Walpole Library and the recipient’s home institution or residence
• reimbursement of the cost of a rental car or local travel expenses
• accommodation for four weeks (fellowships) or two weeks (travel grants) in an eighteenth-century house on the Library’s campus
• a per diem living allowance to cover living expenses for four-week Fellows and two-week Travel Grant Recipients*. The per diem is calculated using the US General Services Administration’s current per diem rates (M & IE portion) for the Hartford, CT area. 

*Payments to non-U.S. citizens (nonresident alien for U.S. tax purposes) are subject to 30% federal tax withholding, per Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations. 

For any Fellowship questions, please contact the Lewis Walpole Library at walpole@yale.edu. 

Qualifications

Scholars pursuing postdoctoral or advanced research, and doctoral candidates at work on a dissertation.

Application Instructions

All materials must be received by the deadline. Applicants are required to submit the following materials through Interfolio:

• An application form completed online
• A curriculum vitae, including educational background, professional experience and publications (3 pages maximum)
• A brief outline of the research proposal (1200 words maximum) that includes
  • a detailed explanation of how the Lewis Walpole Library’s collections will support the research project
  • the value of the applicant's project to their field
• A detailed list of Lewis Walpole Library collection materials to be examined including titles (from Orbis), collection names (from Archives at Yale), call numbers, and any other relevant identifying details.
• Two confidential letters of recommendation. Letters should specifically address the merits of the candidate’s project and its relevance to the collections available at the Lewis Walpole Library. General letters of recommendation or dossier letters will not be considered. The online application includes a link to request letters of recommendation and which the recommenders use to upload letters directly.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Yale University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Yale values diversity among its students, staff, and faculty and strongly welcomes applications from women, persons with disabilities, protected veterans, and underrepresented minorities.