Online Research Resources I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.
Free Online early modern resources Online catalogues Free Full-Text Online Journals Text resources Online Historical Prompt-Books Online Projects Subscription Online Journals and databases Other Useful Research Sites
I. Free Online Early Modern Resources 1. Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Service: CERES provides a gateway for research into early modern English manuscript materials, including an online course in English handwriting, useful research links, and an archive of the internet newsletter, Harvest. 2. Database of Early English Playbooks: DEEP is a database of early modern plays and playwrights with additional useful information, such as genre, dates of first publication and production. 3. English Short Title Catalogue: ESTC lists over 460,000 published between 1473 and 1800, as well as libraries who hold these items. 4. Leeds Verse Database (BCMSV): This is a database of English poetry contained in the over 6,600 17th and 18th-century manuscripts from the Brotherton Collection. 5. William Shakespere’s Small Latine & Lesse Greek: This is a scanned and searchable 1944 text by scholar T.W. Baldwin of books available during Shakespeare’s education. 6. Biographical Index of English Drama Before 1660: An annotated list of all playwrights, actors, patrons, musicians, and miscellaneous other people active in English drama before 1660.
7. The Early Modern Drama Database: This database is a work-in-progress, collecting available information on performances in London from 1576 to 1642. 8. REED Online: Records of Early English Drama: REED is an international project bringing together details of drama from the Middle Ages to 1642, the date the Puritans closed London’s theatres.
II. Online Catalogues 1. Touchstone: A project mapping UK Shakespeare collections. 2. Folger Library: A Shakespeare research centre, as well as collections relating to early modern history in the West. 3. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust : The Birthplace Trust’s library collects books, manuscripts, records of historic interest, pictures, photographs relating to Shakespeare. 4. The British Library: The national library of the United Kingdom and holder of a number of folios and quartos. 5. Library of Congress: The national library of the United States of America.
III. Free Full-Text Online Journals 1. Renaissance Forum: An electronic journal of early-modern literary and historical studies. 2. Early Modern Literary Studies: A refereed journal examining English literature, literary culture, and language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 3. Connotations: An electronic journal and forum on English literature from the Middle Ages to the present. [Only some articles are available full-text]
IV. Text Resources 1. British Library Treasures in Full: Shakespeare in Quarto: 93 copies of 21 Shakespeare plays printed before 1642.
2. Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (Texts from the Furness Library, University of Pennsylvania): Images of rare books, manuscripts, papyri, photographs and sheet music. Searching for Shakespeare will provide links to scanned images of several quartos and promptbooks. This catalogue provides the possibility to compare two texts side by side on the screen. This collection includes the online image of the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image’s First Folio. 3. Texts in Original Spelling: The texts record the original published versions of Shakespeare's plays, preserving as many of the physical characteristics of them as possible, including original spelling and format. 4. University of Virginia’s Etext Center’s First Folio 5. Luminarium: An anthology of English literature broken down into the time periods of Medieval, Renaissance, Seventeenth Century and Restoration. 6. On being careful using full-text Shakespeare online.
V. Online Historical Prompt-Books 1. Shakespearean Prompt-Books of the Seventeenth Century 2. Romeo and Juliet Prompt Book Database: This database includes 170 images of prompt books. 3. Booth’s Hamlet: Promptbook of J. B. Pitman (1879)
VI. Online Projects 1. Hamlet on the Ramparts: Hamlet on the Ramparts is a digital collection of image, text, film and sound recording of past and present productions of Hamlet. 2. Performing the Queen's Men: In the Fall of 2006, the Shakespeare and the Queen's Men Project (SQM) assembled a company of professional actors in Toronto, Canada, to perform three Queen's Men plays: The Famous Victories of Henry V, King Leir and Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay. The Performing the Queen's Men website is designed to disseminate the project's performance research findings and to allow a wider audience access to the experiment through the publication of production resources, including video of the performances
VII. Subscription Online Journals and Databases 1. The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online: Searchable electronic database consisting of the most comprehensive record of Shakespeare-related scholarship and theatrical productions published or produced worldwide between 1962 and 2008. 2. English Literary History: ELH publishes studies that interpret and balance historical, critical, and theoretical concerns within major works in English and American literature. 3. JSTOR: Shakespeare Survey and Shakespeare Quarterly, as well as other pertinent academic journals are available full-text through your home institution. 4. Project Muse: This is another database of full-text academic journals, including Shakespeare Quarterly and Shakespeare Bulletin. 5. Early English Books Online (EEBO): A collection of over 125,000 early print titles.
VIII. Other Useful Research Sites 1. Dramatis Personae Archive: A history of 17th and 18th Century performance arts. 2. King's College London Library Subject Guide 3. Intute Arts and Humanities resources: A free online service of reviewed and selected Web resources for research.