British Literary Manuscripts from the British Library, London. Series One, The English Renaissance: Literature from the Tudor Period to the Restoration, c.1500-c.1700. [109 microfilm reels] Brighton, Sussex, England: Harvester Press Microform Publications, 1984-1987.
Microfilm 1-4759

The English Renaissance makes available the British Library Collection of literary manuscripts for the main periods of the 16th and 17th centuries. The early Tudor Period includes examples of works by John Skelton (c.1460-1529), in Add. MSS 5465 and 28504, a unique manuscript of the York Mystery Plays (Add. MS.35290), and the Devonshire Manuscript of 122 poems attributed to Sir Thomas Wyatt. The Elizabethan Period features the Lee Manuscript of 66 poems by Sir Philip Sidney, 15 volumes of works by Sir Walter Raleigh, six containing contemporary manuscript copies of works by Shakespeare, and the Warwick Manuscripts (Add. MSS. 54566-71) of Fulke Greville. Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama are represented by manuscripts of Marlowe's Tragedy of Dido (Add. MS. 34063), Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca Queene of Britaine and George Gascoigne's Jocasta of 1566, among many others. From the Jacobean Period, the four major texts of John Donne's verse, and the verse of Ben Jonson collected in 18 volumes are outstanding. Thomas Carew, Abraham Cowley, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir John Suckling are all featured strongly. Drama is well represented by such pieces as The Second Mayden's Tragedye in the Lansdowne Collection and by Philip Massinger's autograph manuscript of Believe as You List (Egerton 2820). The Royal manuscripts, being the monarch's own literary collections, form a rare body of formal complimentary verses. Of special interest are the verses composed for Elizabeth I on her many progresses. Court masques feature in most of these collections, with Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens c.1604-5 (Royal MS. 17Bxxxi) being just one example.

Microfilm Edition of an Index to Illustrations of Shakespeare's Plays. Edited by W. Benfield Pressey. [3 microfilm reels] Ann Arbor, MI: Xerox University Microfilms, 1974.
Microfilm 1-3310

A reproduction of an index to illustrations of Shakespeare's plays, compiled and edited by William Benfield Pressey. The citations are to books and journals. The index is composed of 17,000 handwritten 3x5 index cards. For each entry there is an abbreviation of the title of the play, the act and scene illustrated, a citation for the source and any caption lines that appear under the illustration. The index is in English, but the sources indexed may be in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian and occasionally Portuguese, Polish or Swedish.

Shakespeare in Context: Source Material on Microfilm Relating to Shakespeare's Life, Times, and Works. Edited by Professor S. Schoenbaum. [8 microfilm reels] London: World Microfilms Publications, c1982.
Microfilm 1-2524

This collection, which is based throughout on first hand manuscript and printed materials, deals with Shakespeare's life, his theatre, and the background to his writing. It includes complete texts of important early editions of Shakespeare's writings; the two poems he dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, and which he probably proof-read himself; the first (bad) quarto of Hamlet, the second quarto, and the 1623 folio text, and others.

Three Centuries of Drama: English Drama, 1500-1880. [microprint] New York: Readex Microprint,
Microprint 1-10
Another guide for this collection: Davis Reference Z2014.D7 B45

The collection includes every important play published in the English language in England from the year 1500 through 1880 and in the United States from 1714 through 1830, together with manuscripts never before published. Also included are: the Larpent Collection of manuscript plays (1737-1800) from the Henry E. Huntington Library and Museum; translations of foreign plays from Aristophanes and Plautus to Moliére and Racine. The plays have been arranged in the following divisions: Elizabethan, Shakespearean, Jacobean, 1516-1641; Restoration drama, 1642-1700; Early 18th century, 1701-1750; Late 18th century, 1751-1800, and the Larpent collection of Manuscript plays, 1737-1800; and the Larpent collection of American plays, 1714-1830. In addition to plays written in England and America this collection includes English translations of foreign plays including works by Aristophanes and Plautus.

English and American Drama of the Nineteenth Century: American, 1831-1900. [microprint] New York: Readex Microprint, 1965-.
Microprint 1-4

The collection includes every play published in the English language from the year 1801 through 1900 and in the United States from 1831 through 1900 in printed and manuscript form, whether it be a historical drama, melodrama, comic opera, an unperformed poetic play, pantomime, extravaganza, satiric comedy or burletta. It covers manuscripts, prompt books, acting editions, and published plays. It also includes 19th century translations of foreign plays (from the ancient Greece to Ibsen). Among American plays both a standard library edition (or an acting edition) of a play and a prompt book of a contemporary performance is included, e.g., David Belasco, Madame Butterfly, Augustin Daly, Under the Gaslight (and more than 50 other stage pieces either written or adapted by Daly), etc. The American Collection is rich in temperance drama and plays on such topical matters as slavery and the Civil War.

Nineteenth Century Theatre Periodicals. [54 microfilm reels] Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Microform, 1984-86.
Microfilm Serial 1-1387

Part 1: Theatre periodicals published from 1800 to 1897 housed in the British Library, Bloomsberg. Part 2: Periodicals published from 1880 housed in the British Library Newspaper Library, Colendale. Part 3: From the Theatre Museum, London and the Bodleian, Oxford. There is a list of contents at the beginning of each reel.

Three Centuries of Drama. American, 1741-1830. [microprint] New York: Readex Microprint, 1952-.
Microprint 1-10
Another guide for this collection: Davis Reference Z2014.D7 B45

The collection includes every important play published in the English language in England from the year 1500 through 1880 and in the United States from 1714 through 1830, together with manuscripts never before published. Also included are: the Larpent Collection of manuscript plays (1737-1800) from the Henry E. Huntington Library and Museum; translations of foreign plays from Aristophanes and Plautus to Moliére and Racine. The plays have been arranged in the following divisions: Elizabethan, Shakespearean, Jacobean, 1516-1641; Restoration drama, 1642-1700; Early 18th century, 1701-1750; Late 18th century, 1751-1800, and the Larpent collection of Manuscript plays, 1737-1800; and the Larpent collection of American plays, 1714-1830. In addition to plays written in England and America this collection includes English translations of foreign plays including works by Aristophanes and Plautus.

Paul L. Dunbar Papers: A Microfilm Edition. [9 microfilm reels] Columbus, OH: Ohio Historical Society, 1972.
Microfilm 1-4491
Another guide to this collection: Davis Reference Z8247.4 .F85 1972

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born to two former slaves in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872. With limited educational opportunities, he went to work as an elevator operator and later became a successful poet-novelist. At the time of his death in 1906, he had written six books of short stories and sketches, in addition to numerous poems, plays, and essays. The Dunbar collection includes his correspondence, scrapbooks, financial records, essays, poems, plays, literary manuscripts, newspaper clippings, and the papers of his wife, schoolteacher and poet Alice Ruth Moore. Correspondence and other papers relating to his large coterie, which included both blacks and whites, provide a glimpse of his life and the times in which he lived.

The Center For Research Libraries -- Drama and Theater

Graduate students and researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill benefit enormously from the Library's membership in the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. The CRL purchases materials, particularly microform sets, backruns of newspapers and periodicals, and foreign dissertations. The Center makes its materials available to researchers at member institutions on indefinite loan.