Lancashire Authors Association Collection

The Lancashire Authors Association is devoted to the study of Lancashire literature, history, traditions and dialect. The LAA has been promoting the reading and writing of Lancashire literature since 1909.

The LAA Library was founded in Horwich in 1921. The collection has been housed in a range of locations since then, including Manchester and Accrington, before moving to the University of Bolton in it's centenary year.

Browse catalogued items in the collection

About the Collection

The LAA Collection comprises of over 2000 items of literature, prose and periodicals relating to history, traditions and dialect of Lancashire. The collection includes works by Edwin Waugh, Elizabeth Gaskell and Samuel Laycock among others. 

The Lancashire Authors' Association collection is a great asset to the University. As a unique historical record of Lancashire's literary culture it complements both the Worktown Collection and the Andrew Bullen Cotton Industry Collection. While supporting teaching in several areas, researchers will benefit greatly through the facility to cross-interrogate these collections.

Professor Robert Snape, Emeritus Professor of Cultural History

The library collection of the Lancashire Authors' Association stretches back a century. The proposal to establish a library was approved at a meeting of the association held at the Railway Mechanics' Institute, Horwich. It has grown into one of the largest collections of regional literature in the country and the LAA is delighted that it is now in the safe care of the University of Bolton. There is enormous scope to develop the collection and make it available to a wider audience.

Professor Paul Salveson, LAA Librarian and Visiting Professor in Worktown Studies

Searching the Collection

The LAA collection has been moved to the Peter Marsh Library at the University of Bolton and is currently being catalogued and prepared for shelving. Items that have been catalogued are browsable here. 

Once fully catalogued the collection will be searchable via Discover@Bolton and our Library Catalogue. The Library will work to increase the discoverability of the collection in future, supporting the work of the LAA to bring Lancashire literature and dialect to a global audience. 

If you have any enquiries about the collection, please Contact Us.

Further Links

• The Lancashire Authors Association
• Lancashire Loominary
• Poetry of the Lancashire Cotton Famine
• Victorian Bolton
• Writing Bolton
• Cottonopolis
• Old Photos of Bolton
• Bolton Asian Migration