We study the Hilbert scheme of smooth, irreducible, nondegenerate and linearly normal curves of degree d and genus g in P r (r ≥ 3) whose complete and very ample hyperplane linear series D have relatively small index of speciality i(D) = g − d + r. In particular we completely determine the existence as well as the non-existence of Hilbert schemes of linearly normal curves H L d,g,r for every possible triples (d, g, r) with i(D) = 5 and r ≥ 3. We also determine the irreducibility of the Hilbert scheme H L g+r−5,g,r when the genus g is near to the minimal possible value with respect to the dimension of the projective space P r for which H L g+r−5,g,r = ∅, say r + 9 ≤ g ≤ r + 11. In the course of proofs of key results, we show the existence of linearly normal curves of degree d ≥ g + 1 with arbitrarily given index of speciality with some mild restriction on the genus g.