The collection of Sundanese manuscript transcriptions held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra was acquired by the Library from Holland in 1959 after the decease of its owner, R.A. Kern, sometime Advisor for Native and Muhammadan Affairs to the Netherlands East India Governent. Kern had the collection made by ordering copies, transcribed into Roman script, from holdings of the Bataviaasch Genootschap voor Kunst en Wetenschappen, from 1924 to 1926. With almost 130 titles, it is not as large as that of the B.G. yet it preserves some texts which have subsequently been lost from those holdings.

MS1673 is a little known library resource and one sadly under-utilized. An important key to its use is a summary of contents prepared in Batavia in 1926 by R. Memed Sastrahadiprawira, one of the best known pre-war Sundanese writers and a star of the Balai Pustaka. This useful Dutch document has been translated into English and posted on the websites of the National Library of Australia and of the Faculty of Asian Studies, the Australian National University.

MS1673 reflects Sundanese society on the eve of modernity. I shall discuss those works which I have consulted and found useful during my research into the literature of West Java.