From the first book published in English through the titles printed during the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, Early English Books Online: (Pollard and Redgrave, STC I), 1475-1640—a subset of the Early English Books Online database—contains nearly all 26,500 titles listed in A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue and its revised edition.

Early English Books I comprehensively documents the magnificent English Renaissance—an era that witnessed the rebirth of classical humanism, the broadening of the known world, and the rapid spread of printing and education.

Students and scholars of literature can use the database to examine the earliest editions of such classics as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. Textual scholars will be able to compare variations in the early quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays with the renowned First Folio edition of 1623, and the great Renaissance authors can be studied in light of lesser-known literature from the era.

Students and scholars of history will be interested in the original, printed versions of royal statutes and proclamations. Military, religious, legal, Parliamentary, and many other public documents are reproduced in the collection.

Social historians will be able to gain insight into the lives of the common people through almanacs and calendars, broadsides and romances, and popular pamphlets such as The triall of witch-craft, shewing the true and right methode of discouery (1616).

Researchers interested in religious studies will find a host of sermons, homilies, saints’ lives, liturgies, and the Book of Common Prayer (1549). The King James translation of the Bible (1611) can be studied in relation to earlier English translations, and Latin, Greek, and Welsh translations invite comparison with the English version.

A large amount of material also is available for:

• Science historians, who can research the beginnings of modern science
• Political scientists interested in debates on the divine rights of kings
• Classicists who want to study Greek and Latin authors through influential Renaissance translations such as Chapman’s Homer
• Linguists, who can compile definitive data for the study of Early Modern English
• Musicologists who want to research numerous early English ballads and carols
• Art historians and bibliophiles who will appreciate a unique opportunity to analyze early typefaces and book illustrations

The database is available on the Web through a custom interface.

MARC records are available for purchase separately.