Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700

A scholarly research tool cataloguing 37,834 manuscript texts by 237 British authors of the 16th–17th centuries – poems, plays, discourses, translations, notebooks, letters – found in 498 public and private collections worldwide.

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About CELM

A brief history of the project and its contributors, with an essay on the catalogue's origins by its creator, Peter Beal.

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Using CELM

A guide to searching the database, using filters, and understanding the details found in each manuscript record.

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Other Folger Resources

The Folger also hosts the Union First Line Index of English Verse and the Private Libraries in Renaissance England (PLRE) project.