British Literary Manuscripts Online (BLMO) is a digital database provided by Gale that offers researchers access to a wealth of original manuscripts, drafts, letters, and other primary documents from British literary figures. This resource is particularly valuable for scholars studying the development of British literature, textual variations, authorial intent, and the historical context in which these works were produced. The database is divided into two key collections: Medieval and Renaissance (1100-1660) and 1660-1900, covering nearly 800 years of British literary history.

The Medieval and Renaissance collection (1100-1660) provides researchers with early British literary texts, including handwritten manuscripts, religious writings, poetry, and prose. This section includes works from Geoffrey Chaucer, notable for The Canterbury Tales, and other Middle English authors such as John Gower. Scholars can explore early editions, handwritten annotations, and scribal variations in medieval and early modern texts. Additionally, Renaissance dramatists such as Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson are represented, with access to early drafts, marginalia, and contemporary responses to their work.

The 1660-1900 collection focuses on the expansion of British literature during the Restoration, Romantic, and Victorian periods. This collection includes original manuscripts from literary figures such as John Milton, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and William Blake. Researchers can examine Swift’s handwritten drafts of Gulliver’s Travels or explore Alexander Pope’s carefully revised satirical poetry. The Romantic era is represented with works from William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats.

Over 4,500 manuscripts ranging from a few pages to several hundred pages in length. Students and scholars of British literature, religion, and philosophy will find this database useful.

Search Capabilities

Researchers can search by citation, author, title of major works, document type, year, century, source library, or source microfilm collection. The platform also allows users to browse authors, library collections, manuscript catalogs, and more. It includes features such as linking to related resources, creating permanent links to items of interest, and options to print, email, or download manuscript facsimiles. Users can view manuscripts either page-by-page or as thumbnails, with tools to magnify or rotate images for closer analysis.

Is this database worthwhile in searching the work of a particular author? The browse function allows the researcher to see the content written by an author. For example, click on the Charles Dickens link and you will see 18 records ranging from letters to auction catalogues. Under the “collection” facet, sixteen manuscripts are part of the Forster Collection while two belong to the More family of Loseley Park, Surrey (Losely Collection) collection. However, A Tale of Two Cities is not listed among these eighteen records and one may be excused to think that this work is not in the database. Instead, do a keyword search using the title and two manuscripts (parts one and two) will appear. These manuscripts appear under the Forster Collection. The morale of the story is to do multiple and varied searches in order not to miss anything!

Text Analysis

Since BLMO is part of the Gale Digital Scholar Lab, the researcher can do a textual analysis of the entire database or build a subset of documents. Once logged in (or having created an account) in the Lab, select the ‘Build’ option (top right hand corner of the screen). Select ‘view all limiters in Advanced Search’ option. A list of available databases is given (select British Literary Manuscripts Online and deselect the rest). While the search interface for both the Gale Primary Sources and the Gale Digital Scholar Lab are the same, the Lab allows the researcher to customize one’s own unique dataset by pulling material from Gale Primary Sources or by importing external documents from other full text databases. In addition to building individualized datasets, the Lab has six text analysis tools for examining the content further:  Ngrams, Parts of Speech, Document Clustering, Named Entity Recognition, Topic Modeling, and Sentiment Analysis.

Integration with other Research Tools

BLMO integrates effectively with other major research tools, serving as a valuable complement to platforms such as Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and Early English Books Online (EEBO), which provide access to early printed works. It also works in conjunction with HathiTrust, offering researchers access to digital copies of published literary texts, thereby enhancing the depth and breadth of literary scholarship across manuscript and print sources. The patient researcher can bring together many works from different database into a collection for analysis.

Conclusion

BLMO benefits a wide range of users, including literary scholars examining manuscript variations and the textual history of literary works, historians exploring the cultural and personal contexts of literary figures, and graduate students conducting primary-source research for theses and dissertations. It is also a valuable resource for librarians supporting digital scholarship initiatives and facilitating access to rare and unique materials. However, improvements in OCR technology could enhance searchability of handwritten material. Only if the text has been OCRed will it be discoverable in a keyword search. Still, seeing an original manuscript with the edits made by the author (see the image for A Tale of Two Cities) does bring a sense of wonder.

 

Kevin Gunn is the Coordinator of Digital Scholarship at The Catholic University of America Libraries.