Literatures in English: A Research Guide

A guide to print and digital resources for research in English language literatures

Guides to Manuscripts (Online)

Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450-1700
Complete catalogue of literary manuscripts by 237 British authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It offers descriptions of more than 37,000 manuscript texts of poems, plays, discourses, translations, etc., as well as notebooks, annotated printed books, corrected proofs, promptbooks, letters, documents and other related manuscript materials, many hitherto unrecorded, found in several hundred public and private collections world-wide.
Digital Scriptorium
A growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many U.S. institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.
WorldCat
A meta-catalog including the holdings of thousands of libraries, worldwide. To locate manuscripts, use Advanced Search, "Limit type to" Archival Materials, and set the "Subtype limits" for format to Manuscript.

Guides to Manuscripts (Print)

Catalogue of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon
Lists more than 400 manuscripts, most with full entries including "references to significant scholarship and editions, discussions of date, content, physical characteristics, script & decorations, and provenance." Harner calls it "essential" and "magisterial."
Catalog of manuscripts of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
The Folger includes materials on other writers of the 16th through 18th centuries. You will probably need a letter from the English department to do research at the Folger. Hamnet, the Folger Library Catalog, includes newer manuscript acquisitions, but use of the printed catalog volumes is still needed.
Catalog of manuscripts of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. First supplement.
A supplement to title above.
Dictionary Catalog of the Manuscript Division [New York Public Library]
NYPL is one of the two or three greatest libraries in the country, and it's only a bus or train ride away. Call before visiting manuscript sites, however, to find out if there are any special conditions for use or special arrangements.
Guide to Modern Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library
Another nearby source of great value.
Index of English literary manuscripts
An ongoing set providing very detailed coverage of major writers from 1450 to 1900. A set providing very detailed coverage of major writers from 1450 to 1900. 4 volumes, each in 2 to 4 parts.
Location register of English literary manuscripts and letters : eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Location register of twentieth-century English literary manuscripts and letters : a union list of papers of modern English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh authors in the British Isles.

These two sets offer brief entries, arranged by author, and provide helpful information on access to the manuscripts.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections. (1959-93)
A nation-wide listing of manuscript collections, updated annually. Includes indexes by name and subject. Still an important adjunct to online databases like WorldCat which are slowly superseding it.
See also the cumulative Index to Personal Names in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, 1959-1984 and Index to Subjects and Corporate Names in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, 1959-1984.