For this month's Collection Spotlight, guest writer, Sue Bell, shares her experiences of researching her great-grandmother's letters in the Fryer Library's collection.

Records of women's lives in the 19th century are very sparse in comparison with those of men or at least 'important' men. Women were usually invisible with few or no signs that they had lived and even wives of 'important' men were only recorded when they were attending social occasions or accompanying their husbands to events.

8 November marks 165 years since author Bram Stoker was born in Dublin, Ireland. Fryer Library holds two letters written by Stoker. The first dates from December 1884 and was sent to Edmund Hodgson Yates; the other dates from July 1903 and was sent to Edmund's son, Edmund Smedley Yates.