Shakespeare and Early Modern Research

LEME searches and displays word-entries from monolingual English dictionaries, bilingual lexicons, technical vocabularies, and other encyclopedic-lexical works, 1480-1755.

Published between 1473 and 1800
Mainly, but not exclusively, in English
Published mainly in the British Isles and North America
From the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries

The Bibliography of British and Irish History provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth, during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present. It is the successor to the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History, available online from 2002 to 2009.

The Shakespeare Census attempts to locate and describe all extant copies of all editions of Shakespeare’s works through 1700, excluding the folios. We include all items attributed to Shakespeare in print during the period, but not those attributed to him only by modern scholarship. We exclude the Restoration adaptations.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford DNB) is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors. It is overseen by academic editors at Oxford University, UK, and published by Oxford University Press.

The Map of Early Modern London is comprised of seven distinct, interoperable projects: a digital edition of the 1561 Agas woodcut map of London; an Encyclopedia of London people, places, topics, and terms; a Library of marked-up texts rich in London toponyms; an anthology of old-spelling and modern editions of all the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline mayoral shows (modern editions forthcoming); a versioned edition of John Stow’s Survey of London (1598 is nearly complete; the early stages of 1633 are in draft); the London Parish project (by Christopher Highley; forthcoming); and Browsing the Bookstalls of St. Paul’s project (by Erica Zimmer; forthcoming).

This index is a complete annotated list of all playwrights, actors, patrons, musicians, and miscellaneous other people active in English drama before 1660. Each entry contains basic information about the person's dates and dramatic activities, along with a list of books and articles containing biographical information. This index is a precursor to a forthcoming Biographical Dictionary of English Drama Before 1660, which will contain fuller information and narrative biographies for each person. I welcome all comments and suggestions, including notice of any errors or omissions contained herein.

The Bibliography of English Women Writers 1500-1640 has evolved into a still-growing list of scholarship about 738 recovered writers and located texts, canonical and non-canonical. It identifies many hitherto unknown writers, including among them not only already familiar figures, but also women refugees such as the recusants, women in the colonies, Marrano women (Anusot), women translators, and English women writers in French, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.