Overview of Manuscript Sources
To learn more about the manuscripts in DEx, we encourage you to visit the sites linked from the search results for each manuscript (available when you search by manuscript).
Each manuscript will have a link to the following external resources when they are available:
- a description of the manuscript from the repository’s online catalogue
- the entry in the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts
- the results from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Union First Line Index of English Verse
- links to any available online facsimiles of the manuscript
The bulk of our extracts were copied into manuscripts; however, some extracts were copied by hand into printed books, such as the couplet from Pericles (image below, transcription linked here) copied into a printed edition of George Chapman’s An Humorous Day’s Mirth. As such, you will find some printed sources with handwritten additions in our manuscript list.
STC 4987 copy 1, leaf H2 verso (MS notes). Selections from Pericles. Courtesy of Shakespeare Documented. License and full-page image: https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/details/3221