LIBRARY RESOURCES
The John Rylands University Library - the largest on-campus university library in the UK - has a number of concentrations relevant to students of medieval and early modern studies. Its holdings of primary and secondary material are extensive and cover, among other areas, Arthurian and Chaucer studies, medieval and early modern gender and sexuality, medievalism, medieval and early modern religious writing.
The University of Manchester also subscribes to a number of relevant online databases, including Early English Books Online, a massive and ever-expanding database of facsimile versions of books published in English before 1700. It also subscribes to a range of image collections, such as LUNA and ARTSTOR.
In addition, the Special Collections unit holds a number of important manuscripts, printed texts and documentary collections for scholars working in medieval and early modern studies. It has collected some 12,500 books printed between 1475 and 1640 (which include a significant collection of works by the early printer, William Caxton), and some 45,000 printed between 1641 and 1700.
These collections include:
Author collections : including
- Edmund Spenser collection
- Shakespeare collection (1,400 items)
- Seventeenth-century literary publications collection
- John Milton collection
- John Bunyan collection
History and Romance in Manuscript and Print:
- John Lydgate's Troy Book and Fall of Prynces
- Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon
- The Brut or the Chronicles of England
- Malory's Morte D'Arthur
- Lancelot du Lac
- the Roman de la Rose
- the Histoire Universelle
- the Chronicon Angliae
- Caxton's printing of The Canterbury Tales.
Travel Writing:
- Early editions of the writings of John Mandeville, Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. There are also some mappae mundi, including a twelfth-century Beatus map.
Religious Writing:
Apocalyptic literature;
- Richard Rolle of Hampole's The Pricke of Conscience;
- The Wycliffite Old Testament and New Testament;
- Wyclif's Psalms and Parabilis of Solomon;
- The Poore Caitiff, a collection of early sermons;
- Middle English versions of the Ten Commandments;
- Bonaventura's The Lyf of Christ (trans. Nicholas Love).
- Bible printed book collection
- Reformation collection
- English tract collection (15,000 items)
- Midgley Collection (Quaker writings)
- Irish MSS collection 1400-1900
- Pluscarden Charters 1233-1565
Medievalism:
- the medieval collections listed above, and:
- Tregaskis Book Collection
- Other Private Press books (Kelmscott Press Collection, Cuala Press Collection);
- The Ruskin Collection;
- Fairfax Murray (pre-Raphaelite circle, Rossetti and Burne-Jones)
- The Spielmann Collection
- The Holman Hunt Papers.
- There are also fabulous primary materials on Medievalism to be found in the Whitworth Gallery at the University of Manchester (for instance: William Morris / Arts and Crafts prints, paintings, wallpapers, textiles).