Collection of manuscripts, correspondence, and printed matter related to the history of the hornbook.

Portions of the material in the collection were reproduced or quoted by Tuer in his History of the horn-book (London: Leadenhall Press, 1896).
Most of the letters are addressed to Kenneth Mackenzie and comprise responses from collectors and scholars to Mackenzie's notice in Notes & Queries (Feb. 11, 1860, p. 101) soliciting information about hornbooks. Several responses include drawings of hornbooks by the correspondents.
Also present are notes, printed and drawn illustrations of display artifacts and printed proofs for the publication of Mackenzie's lecture on the hornbook at the Society of Antiquaries, London, May 7, 1863 in the Society's journal Archaeologia; the article was ultimately not printed as Mackenzie had apparently signed a contract for a full-length book with publisher William Tegg. The present collecton includes a typescript of Mackenzie's 1863 unpublished article likely prepared by Tuer in the 1890s, as well as two manuscript mock-ups by Mackenzie of the book's title page and first chapter, entitled The horn-book: its origin, progress, and decline, dated 1860.
Among Mackenzie's display artifacts is a disbound copy of A divine horn-book: or, The first form in the true Theosophick school, wherein is taught the knowledge of Gods great name (London: Printed for the author, 1688), cataloged separately as PML 89098.