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British Literature: Early Modern

A guide to British Literature tools and resources.

Manuscripts and Early Printed Books: Catalogs

COPAC
The combined catalog of nearly 100 major UK and Irish libraries.
The English Short Title Catalogue
Other
British Library's  Manuscripts Catalogue online.
 
British Library's Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
 

The European Library
Allows for searching for digitized items as well in the catalogs of print holdings of libraries in 46 countries across Europe.

Manuscripts and Early Printed Books Online

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Located on the third floor of the Main Library, holds numerous editions and rare works of incunabla, medieval manuscripts, early modern works, and many other treasures in bibliographic history. It most prominently has a rich Shakespeare collection that include all four folios, a set of Pavier quartos (1619), a copy of the 1640 Poems, and the stationer's fragment (ca. 1603–1607) that documents the possible lost play by Shakespeare, Love's Labor’s Won. The RBML also holds 16th- and 17th-century editions of works by John Northbrooke, Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Heywood, William Prynne's Histro-mastix, among many others.

 
British Library
British Library: Manuscripts Online
British Library: Early Printed Books
There are some 12,500 incunabula at the British Library, which represent about 10,390 editions out of an estimated total of surviving 28,000 editions published in the 15th century. We have over 230 incunabula printed in England of which over 120 are in English. A substantial number of our 16th-century printed books came into the Library with the large foundation collections, and we have added to the collections through regular acquisitions. Our printed books cover every possible subject, including religion, literature, editions of the Classics, editions of the Bible, grammars and dictionaries, and medical and scientific books. 
 

Brotherton Library Leeds
Brotherton Library's Online Collection
Literary Manuscripts: Leeds
This database features complete facsimile images of 190 manuscripts of 17th and 18th century verse held in the celebrated Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. Alongside original compositions are painstakingly copied verses, translations, songs and riddles. The whole collection is situated within an assortment of manuscripts, some entirely dedicated to poetry, while others contain medicinal recipes, household accounts, draft letters, musical scores and plays. There are also several printed works, with handwritten verse additions.

Folger Shakespeare Library
Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO)
Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) is a project of the Folger Shakespeare Library, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), to provide scholars and the general public with convenient web access to transcriptions, images, and metadata for manuscripts from the sixteenth  and seventeenth centuries.

 
General
Perdita Manuscripts
Perdita means "lost woman" and the purpose of the project has been to find early modern women authors who were "lost" because their writing exists only in manuscript form. Over 230 entries have been selected and digitized. In addition to the digital facsimiles, the site includes biographical and bibliographical information and essays by specialists in the field.
 
Women Writers Project
Women Writers Project, a research project that is devoted to early modern writing by women and electronic text encoding. Offers access to a searchable catalogue, bibliographic information, the history of the project, documentation, an archive of the newsletter, and suggested readings.

Research Databases

Subject Headings

Use the following subject headings to search for books, periodicals, and electronic resources in the library catalog:

Literature 

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism

English literature--16th century

English literature--16th century--History and criticism

English literature--17th century

English literature--17th century--History and criticism

Poetry

English poetry--16th century

English poetry--16th century--History and criticism

English poetry--17th century

English poetry--17th century--History and criticism

Drama

English drama--16th century

English drama--16th century--Criticism, Textual

English drama--16th century--History and criticism

English drama 17th century

English drama--17th century--Criticism, Textual

English drama 17th century--History and criticism