This manuscript collection from Colonial Pennsylvania, for the most part unbound and only partially organized, contains a substantial amount of both prose and poetry; included as well are several bound manuscript volumes, mostly school texts. The prose material comprises epistolary communication and copies of public documents. The verse collection consists of autograph lyric compositions by several authors, whose individual poems have their origins in Germany and in America. Many of the pieces specify the date and place of the occasion (birthday, religious holiday, etc.) for which they were written while several record historically significant events; in some cases, both draft and final versions of the poems exist. The verse collection is especially important because of its internal coherence, the availablity of contemporary biographical documentation, the clear evidence of Classical influences, and the close interplay between the Latin diction of the poetry and that of contemporary vernacular (German) religious and secular expression. Taken as a whole, the entire collection attests the transfer of Classical influences from Continental Europe to Colonial America and also provides important insights into the social, cultural, and religious world of early Pennsylvania and its continued links to Europe.