This is a bibliography of resources for manuscript study is created and maintained by Laura Estill.
(Let me know if any links are broken!)
Many of these sites focus on British manuscripts from the early modern period.
Trying to get back to the digitalrenaissance page? (Click here.)
NOTE: Some of these sites require subscription access, so you will have to log in through your home institution.
British Literary Manuscripts Online (via library)
British Library Digitized Manuscripts
Some Bodleian and Oxford MS facsimiles online
More Bodleian MSS (Luna)
Folger links to online manuscripts
Literary manuscripts 17th and 18th century poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds (via library)
Digital Scriptorium (Manuscripts) (Columbia)
Wellcome library: incl. 17th C receipt books, many by women
Harvard views of Readers, Readership, and Reading History
Bodleian ArtStor images from MSS (see also BL online illuminated MSs and images online)
Perdita Manuscripts (via library)
Trinity College Dublin MSS (focus: Ireland)
Defining Gender 1450-1910: Five Centuries of Advice Literature Online (mostly print, some manuscript) (via library)
European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO)
Trinity College Cambridge - some MSS
Ransom University of Texas digitized MSS
Yale Osborne and Beinecke some MSS
Early Modern Letters Online (often links to facsimiles and transcriptions)
The Great Parchment Book (1639)
Susanna Collet's Commonplace Book (Buccia and Trettien)
Anglo-American Legal Traditions (includes links to facsimiles
State Papers Online (Part 1: 1509-1603) (via library)
Medieval MSS on the web (meta-resource)
Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts at the Koninklijk Bibliotheek (Netherlands)
Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux
Digitized Medieval Manuscripts - UCLA
Jane Austen, Blake, Lewis Caroll and others
Jane Austen's Fiction Manuscripts
The Devonshire Manuscript Social Edition
The Darwin Correspondence Project
Dunedin Public Library (incl. many medieval)
Manuscripts from Lichfield Cathedral
Production and Use of English Manuscripts from 1060 to 1220
Calendar of Fine Rolls of Henry III
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries (18th-20th C) via subscription from Alexander Street
CERL list of Union Catalogues
Calames: Online Catalogue (with links to facsimiles)
Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Welsh MSS (National Library of Wales)
Manuscriptorium (includes multiple languages; work in progress)
DM2E: Digitized Manuscripts to Europe (project underway)
CELM (Peter Beal's Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts)
Leeds (Brotherton)
British Library's Manuscript Catalogue
BL Catalogue of Illuminated MSs
Bodleian Library Manuscript Catalogues (incl. Summary Catalogue & Quarto Catalogues)
Bodleian Forthcoming Electronic Catalogue
Bodleian Summary Catalogues digitized
National Library of Scotland Manuscripts
Huntington Library MS Catalogue
University of Aberdeen Catalogue
University of Michigan British Manuscripts Project (ACLS microfilms)
National Church Database of Manuscripts (Lambeth Palace, etc.)
Christ Church, Oxford, Online Music MSCatalogue
Cambridge MSS (Janus catalogue) - Fitzwilliam museum, etc
Harvard Houghton (at bottom of page)
De Ricci's Census (Uvic access; Hathi trust)
Dromio (Folger)
Background resources
Nelson's Union Index (Folger)
17th C First Line Index (Mark McDayter, Western)
Donne Variorum First Line Indexes
Adam Smyth's Print Miscellany Index
English Clandestine Satire (Harold Love, Meredith Sherlock, Felicity Henderson)
Textbase of Early Tudor English 1485-1550 (UOtago)
A Manuscript Miscellany (Steven May's 2005 Folger course)
Norbrook's Online Bibliography (also has provenance)
British Library info on Manuscript Resources
Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts (Stephen R. Reimer, U of Alberta) (includes massive bibliography)
University of London Manuscript Portal
A Guide to Locating French Manuscripts
Glossary for Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts (Michelle P. Brown)
For England: links and sources
Victoria County History (British History Online)
Clergy of the Church of England Database
Private Libraries in Renaissance England Search (PLRE; Folger)
Private Libraries in Renaissance England homepage
Inner Temple Admissions Database
English Handwriting 1500-1700: An Online Course (Cambridge U; different from below)
English Handwriting: An Online Course (Cambridge U Scriptorium)
Learn How to Read Secretary Hand (Beinecke Library)
ReadMe tutorials/practice (St. Andrew's)
Scottish Paleography (v. good; 16-18th C)
Paleography Terminology (Stanford)
Literary Manuscript Analysis (Heaton at Warwick)
Early Hands (up to 16th C Secretary); Meg Twycross (incl. how to describe link)
Newberry List of Vernacular Paleography sites
Cappelli Scribal Abbreviation in Medieval Latin
The Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive
Watermarks in Jonson's 1616 Works
Print Watermark Sources: Briquet, Churchill, Heawood
Secondary source: "Paper and Watermarks as Bibliographic Evidence"
LiteratureOnline (LiOn) Q5ghjD33
LEME: Lexicons of Early Modern English (Lancashire)
English Manuscript Studies Tables of Contents
Late Medieval English Scribes (incl. descr. of many Harley catalogues)
Reading Experiences Database (1450-1945)
A list of DH GIS projects (John Levin)
Textual Studies 1500-1800 (Kevin Curran; AWESOME links)
Warwick History List of Links to know before you go to archives
A Manuscript Miscellany (Steven May's 2005 Folger course)
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Theatre History Links
Paleography, Codicology, Bibliography links (Robert D. Peckham)
Texts, Manuscripts, Palaeography (Jay Treat)
U of Reading Early Modern Studies Links
Medieval MSS (and some Emod) MS facsimile & microfilm links (Charles Wright)
Medieval Genealogy Links (incl. early modern)
Universal Short Title Catalogue
Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
Database of Early English Playbooks (UPenn: Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser)
Shakespearean Promptbooks of the Seventeenth Century (G. Blakemore Evans)
Digital Miscellanies Index (18th C: Leverhulme, Oxford, Bodleian)
British Printed Images to 1700
English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA) UCSB
Allegro Catalogue of Broadside Ballads (Bodleian)
Also: Image searching for woodcuts in ballads
OpenEmblem (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne; being revised) Emblem Books
Jonson's first folio (digitized, searchable) Holloway
Warburg Institute digitized books
Les Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes
Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
John Foxe's Acts and Monuments online edition
More's Utopia online edition
Digital Renaissance Editions (to be populated)
Renaissance and Restoration Printing (U South Carolina)
English Renaissance in Context (ERIC; UPenn) incl. tutorials on book history and Shakespeare's plays
Architectures of the Book (ArchBook)
The Folger Library's Collation
Early Modern Bibliography Online
The Huntington Library's Verso
The Newberry Library's Center for Renaissance Studies Blog
The BL's Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Blog
The BL's English and Drama Blog
Alexandra Gillespie's Medieval Book Bindings
Anthony Tedeschi's Antipodean Footnotes (re: Aus/NZ special collections)
Ben Brumfield's Collaborative Manuscript Transcription Blog
Codicology and Palaeography in a Digital Age
Codicology and Palaeography in a Digital Age 2
Codicology and Palaeography in a Digital Age 3
Codicology and Palaeography in a Digital Age 4
Questions? email me (Laura)