Resources
WEB SITES
Research Aids
Contains many resources and guides related to the UK National Archives held at Kew. Some useful features: topic-specific reference guides (i.e. family history or military history); Access to Archives (search for keywords in archives held all over England); Documents Online (for a fee, one can download high-quality PDFs of documents such as wills).
Primary and Secondary sources related to British history. Divided into useful categories such as region, time period, and type of resource. Excellent source for local histories, gazetteers, maps, and archival calendars.
English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)
Lists over 460,000 items printed in the British Isles and North America between 1473 and 1800. Definitive place to find bibliographical records for early printed books. Contains very useful information such as number and location of extant copies. Useful to use in tandem with Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Private Libraries of Renaissance England (PLRE)
Searchable database of early modern book-lists representing private libraries of the time. Contains all book-lists found in the printed volumes of Private Libraries of Renaissance England as well as other book-lists printed elsewhere. Search fields include language, format, stationer, STC/Wing, owner, professional status [of owner], and MS type.
Database of Early English Playbooks (DEEP)
An easy-to-use and highly customizable search engine of every playbook produced in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the beginning of printing through 1660, DEEP provides a wealth of information about the original playbooks, their title-pages, paratextual matter, advertising features, bibliographic details, and theatrical backgrounds.
The Leeds Verse Database (BCMSV) contains detailed information about individual items of English poetry contained in the 17th and 18th-century manuscripts from the Brotherton Collection. The database indexes over 6600 poems from more than 160 manuscripts.
British Book Trade Index (BBTI)
An index of the names and brief biographical details and trade details of people who worked in the book trade in England and Wales and who were trading by 1851.
University of Glasgow Emblems Site
Glasgow University Library holds the Sterling Maxwell collection of emblem books, the largest such collection in the world. The site contains images and texts from a variety of English and Continental emblems. A great source for researching the multiple symbolic valences of certain images in the early modern period. The “French Emblem Project” is probably the most useful “sub-site”; its search engine is impressive.
Contains digital images of nine major English emblem books of the early modern period. The “Research” section contains a lot of interesting information about the study of emblem books, including a good bibliography.
Gazetteer of British Place Names
The Gazetteer provides an exhaustive Place Name Index to Great Britain, containing over 50,000 entries. It lists the historic county and the main administrative areas in which each place lies.
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online: find a place name, current or historical.
William Whitaker’s Words [excellent Latin translation tool]
Probably the best online tool for Latin translation. Enter any piece of Latin (doesn’t have to be the root) and you will receive all of its possible meanings. Will supply tense, mood, etc. based on the ending of your word. Includes medieval Latin forms. Will not translate entire sentences (therefore a rudimentary knowledge of Latin grammar is still essential).
Voice of the Shuttle: Renaissance and 17th Century
Nest of hyperlinks related to everything Renaissance and 17th Century. Really good websites on individual writers.
English Handwriting, 1500-1700: An Online Course
An excellent online course in English paleography, especially secretary hand. Nice high-quality images to transcribe (all from Cambridge University libraries) of varying degrees of difficulty. Also contains useful reference tools such as bibliographies, alphabet lists, and abbreviation guides.
Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive
Exactly what it sounds like: a database of watermarks. Searchable by dozens of image categories in four languages.
Database of the reading experiences of British subjects from 1450 to 1945. Records actual experiences of reading only (not fictional experiences). Searchable by a host of factors, including socioeconomic status of the reader, genre of book, and the read text’s provenance.
Early Stuart Libels” is a web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published. Though most of the texts are poems of satire and invective, others take the form of anti-libels, responding to libellers with orthodox panegyric. Contains a first-line index, MS index, and index of major topics of libelous writings (i.e. the Execution of Ralegh or the Lake-Roos Affair).
English Broadside Ballad Archive
EBBA is dedicated to mounting online surviving early ballads printed in English, with priority given to black-letter broadsides of the seventeenth century. Contains all ballads from the famous Pepys collection. Very useful bibliographical records for most ballads. Full text transcriptions are nice as well. The essays related to the “Pepys Categories” are also illuminating.
Records of Early English Drama (REED)-Patrons and Performances
The REED Patrons and Performances Web Site is designed to include a wide range of data about professional performers on tour in the provinces – their patrons, the performance venues they used and the routes they took across the kingdom. The data compiled by REED is searchable by venue, patron, event, and troupe. Useful bibliography and maps.
Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Service (CERES)
Connects the user to various electronic resources about early modern English literature, including resources on Sidney and Spenser, and a paleography course.
A good way to search for keywords in the works of William Shakespeare. You can search by individual play or by individual character (i.e. the word “honor” in lines spoken by Othello).
Early English Books Online (UMass Database)
Digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Over 100,000 books are represented in this database. Incorporates information from the STC, Wing, and the Thomason Tracts. Absolutely invaluable, especially for accessing texts that have never been published in modern editions.
Dictionary of National Biography (UMass Database)
Scholarly biographies of major public figures in British history. A good place to start when conducting biographical research. The bibliographies at the end of these articles are excellent sources for more information or existing MS sources.
Oxford English Dictionary (UMass Database)
I think we all know who this guy is. Etymologies, date charts, usages; everything English language.
Lexicons of Early Modern English (UMass Database)
A collection of dictionaries and other word lists printed in English before 1700. Useful for etymologies.
World Cat (UMass Database)
Access to OCLC records for books held in libraries worldwide. If you can’t find a book in your local catalog, check WorldCat. Useful for tracking down existing copies of a certain book.
MLA International Bibliography (UMass Database)
Although one must still consult the print version of this resource for some gaps in the records, the MLAIB is a good place to look for secondary criticism on a topic related to the literatures of modern languages. See Harner’s Literary Research Guide, 5th ed. for more information on how to navigate between the online and print versions.
MLA Directory of Periodicals (UMass Database)
Source for all sorts of minutiae related to scholarly journals, including addresses for MS submissions, number of articles accepted per year, etc. Keyword searches allow one to find journals related to his or her particular field.
Libraries and Catalogs
If you’re looking for a book you’ve come to the right place. ViaLibri’s meta-search engine can search all used-book sites (i.e Abe Books, Bibliophile), and then you can sort out the best deals. Via Libri is also an invaluable research tool. With the “search libraries” function, users can instantly access the catalogues of all of the world’s major research libraries and national union catalogues.
The Huntington Library (CATALOGUE): San Marino, CA
The Folger Shakespeare Library (HAMNET}: Washington, D.C.
The Newberry Library (CATALOGUE): Chicago, IL
Houghton Library--Harvard (HOLLIS): Cambridge, MA
Beinecke Library--Yale (ORBIS): New Haven, CT
Search the numerous finding aids to Yale’s extensive archival holdings. Also browse the aids by clicking on any of the links under “Alphabetical Listings of Finding Aids by Repository.” Useful finding aids for early modern studies include those within the “Osborn Shelves and Osborn Files” subsection.
British Library (Integrated Catalogue)
British Library-Manuscripts Catalogue
British Library-Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC)
British Library-Database of Bookbindings
The Bodleian Library (SOLO; Western MSS)
The Library of Congress (CATALOGUE)
Birmingham Shakespeare Library
Victoria and Albert Museum: Prints and Books
Organizations
Formed in 1847 with the purchase of Shakespeare's Birthplace, the Trust works to promote in the every part of the world the appreciation and study of the plays and other works of William Shakespeare and general advancements of Shakespearean knowledge. Contains the Shakespeare Collection of Rare Materials as well as archives related to Stratford-upon-Avon.
Shakespeare Association of America
A professional association for the advanced study of Shakespeare’s work and times. Holds an annual conference.
Renaissance Society of America
Since 1954, the Renaissance Society of America has been the leading organization in the Americas for the interdisciplinary study of the period 1300-1650 in Western history. Holds an annual conference.
Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (CELL)
CELL develops archive-based research projects of relevance to the period 1500 - 1800. CELL is independently established as part of the academic landscape of Queen Mary, University of London. CELL's research agenda supports projects that pilot innovative methodologies and practices aimed at making archives matter, and that engage energetically with the wider community. They also offer seminars, events, a skills-based postgraduate training programme and have a thriving community of doctoral research students.
Founded in 1846, the Hakluyt Society seeks to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material.
The Malone Society is named after Edmond Malone, the editor of the first variorum edition of Shakespeare. Since its foundation in 1906, its purpose has been to make more accessible the materials essential for the study of English Renaissance drama.
The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868 and remains the foremost society in Great Britain promoting and defending the scholarly study of the past.
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (Toronto)
Glasgow Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Blogs
ONLINE BOOKS AND EDITIONS
Huntington Library-Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
By no means an exhaustive guide to Renaissance MSS (although the medieval material is quite good), this book should be used in conjunction with the Guide to British Historical Manuscripts and the Guide to British Literary Manuscripts. Of course none of these printed texts supplant the unpublished card catalog kept on site at the Huntington.
Foster, Alumni Oxoniensis, 1500-1714, Vol. I
Foster, Alumni Oxoniensis, 1500-1714, Vol. II
[Volume III hopefully coming soon]
Foster, Alumni Oxoniensis, 1500-1714, Vol. IV
A list of students at Oxford University from 1500-1714. Useful for identifying obscure personal names.
The Bibliographical Society: Electronic Publications
Includes R.B. McKerrow’s Printers' & Publishers' Devices in England & Scotland 1485-1640, The Coffee House Library Short Title Catalogue, and other useful texts.
An online repository of works printed in English between the years 1477 and 1799. Transcriptions, not facsimiles.
Renaissance Electronic Texts (Toronto)
A series of old-spelling, SGML-encoded editions of early individual copies of English Renaissance books and manuscripts,and of plain transcriptions of such works.
Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers...1641-1667
Wooley, First-Line Indexes of English Verse, 1650-1800: A Checklist: a bibliography of first-line indexes.
Online edition of John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments
John Carter and Nicholas Barker, ABC for Book Collectors, 8th edition
A series of electronic texts that will help one decipher those mysterious Latin place names in early modern printing information.
