Over 500 fully-digitized books printed in Europe before 1501.

The Bodleian Library houses the largest collection of western incunabula - books printed with movable metal type up to the end of 1500 - in a university library, amounting to more than 5,600 editions in 6,755 copies.

The books themselves are in the classical and vernacular languages, and cover all subjects and disciplines. They range from a copy of the Gutenberg Bible purchased in 1793, and the sumptuous ‘Strozzi copy’ of Pliny’s Natural History in Italian from the bequest of Francis Douce (one of the Library’s principal donors), and both of which have been digitized, to smaller and much-used copies of medieval devotional works and school-texts.

In addition, the Bodleian’s collections also contain several blockbooks (printed from wooden blocks, on to which the texts and illustrations have been cut). All of the blockbooks, containing biblical and grammatical texts, have now been fully digitized.

Manuscripts and archives from the year 1801 to the present day.

The Bodleian holds one of the world’s largest and most wide-ranging collections of archives and manuscripts. The modern holdings (1801-) provide excellent sources for British political, diplomatic, social and economic history; the politics, economics and social development of African and Commonwealth countries during the colonial and post-colonial period; international development and international relations; British literature; science and medicine; and art history and visual culture.

Around 100 modern manuscripts and archives from the Bodleian have been digitized to date, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein drafts; 30 volumes of William Godwin's diary; an important album of photography by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879); and T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Digital Bodleian also includes the Ashmolean Museum’s Arthur Evans Papers, and post-1800 manuscripts from Oxford college libraries, including Christ Church's Lewis Carroll collection.

Images from over 2,500 medieval manuscripts from the Bodleian and Oxford colleges, with 500 fully digitized items.

The Bodleian’s collection of medieval manuscripts originates with the first books that the University of Oxford acquired. Some were lost with the destruction of Duke Humfrey’s Library in the 16th century, but Sir Thomas Bodley's re-establishment of the university library in 1602 brought in more manuscripts from around the world than the medieval university itself possessed. Many manuscripts originated from the dissolved monasteries of Great Britain.

The collection was further enhanced by donations through the 17th and 18th centuries, such as those of William Laud, Sir Kenelm Digby, and Elias Ashmole. The 19th and early 20th centuries brought further opportunities for acquisitions, notably of books belonging to Francis Douce and Matteo Luigi Canonici. The priorities and interests of such collectors have determined the manuscripts surviving in the Bodleian as much as their medieval creators.

Digitized items include MS. Ashmole 1511, “the Ashmole bestiary”, a richly decorated early 13th century English bestiary; MS. Junius 1, “the Orrmulum”, a 12th century book of verse written in phonetic Middle English, and Exeter College’s MS 47, a psalter owned by both Elizabeth of York and Katherine of Aragon.

Over 500 portraits, including easel paintings, sculptured works, drawings, photographs, and prints.

The first portrait in the Library, the polychromed bust of Sir Thomas Bodley by an unknown artist, arrived in 1605. In successive centuries many more portraits arrived, by gift, by bequest, and, rarely, by purchase.

In 2010-11, the Public Catalogue Foundation made it possible for all Bodleian portraits in oils to be photographed in colour and digitized. These images first became accessible online in 2012 via the BBC’s Your Paintings website, which in 2016 became Art UK. A further 200 items have since been digitized, and all have had their descriptions updated thanks to a a generous grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

The digitized portraits include a series of 19 portraits of Oxford College founders executed c.1670; the sculpted head-stops which decorate the Old Schools Quadrangle of the library; and an early "grand tour" portrait recently attributed to Pompeo Batoni.

Images from 80 important Arabic manuscripts and maps.

When the Bodleian Library opened in 1602, the library already held a manuscript copy of the Qur’an. Substantial additions of Arabic material were soon made with the collections of scholars such as Archbishop William Laud, Edward Pococke and Robert Huntington. In 1714 the largest single, named collection of Arabic manuscripts, that of Archbishop Narcissus Marsh, was bequeathed to the Library.

Several manuscripts from these collections have been digitized, including MS. Pococke 400, a 14th-century copy of Kalīlah wa-Dimnah (the Arabic version of the Fables of Bidpai); MS. Pococke 375, a copy of al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī’s Book of Roger; and MS. Huntington 212, a fine 12th-century illustrated copy of al-Ṣūfī’s Book of Fixed Stars.

Other digitized material includes MS. Bodl. Or. 793, a glorious Safavid era copy of the Qur’an (which once belonged to Tīpū Sulṭān of Mysore); MS. Bodl. Or. 133, the extraordinary 15th-century astrological compilation made in Jalāyirid Baghdad known as Kitāb al-Bulhān; and MS. Arab. c. 90, the remarkable cosmographical treatise known as the Book of Curiosities.

Over 800 games, playbills, posters, writing blanks and more from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera.

The John Johnson Collection is one of the largest collections of printed ephemera in the world. It offers a fresh view of British history through primary, uninterpreted printed documents which, produced for short-term use, have survived by chance, including advertisements, handbills, playbills and programmes, menus, greetings cards, posters, postcards. The Collection is strongest in the 18th to early 20th centuries but also contains earlier material.

The digitized material includes writing blanks and board games, and 18th century entertainment ephemera.

Rare printed books produced after the 15th century, including Shakespeare's First Folio.

The rare books holdings of the Bodleian Library reflect its history as the library of the University of Oxford since 1602, with particular strengths in theology, law, the classical tradition, mathematics, life sciences, literature and early children’s books, although almost all subjects and genres are represented.

This collection of digital images includes a very small sample of some of our great printed treasures, including works by William Shakespeare and William Blake; the Bay Psalm Book (the first book printed in British North America); and examples of less well known titles. Also available are a small number of items from Christ Church, Exeter College and Magdalen College.

Western manuscripts and archives from the years 1500 to 1800.

The Bodleian holds one of the world’s largest and most wide-ranging collections of archives and manuscripts. Strengths of the early modern holdings include major antiquarian and topographical collections from the 17th century onwards, which provide essential sources for 17th-18th century British and Irish history; Britain's relationship with European states; Britain's imperial and colonial history; and British literature.

A small number of these have been digitized to date, including 'Tradescants' Orchard’, a set of 17th century watercolours of garden fruits; both volumes of John Aubrey's Monumenta Britannica; and Jane Austen's Volume the First.

Digital Bodleian also includes early modern manuscripts from Oxford college libraries, among them a transcript of David Gregory's Notes on Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica held by Christ Church; and John Prideaux's teaching notes from Exeter College.

Images from nearly 500 maps and atlases, spanning the medieval period to the 20th century, including Western, Arabic, Chinese and Korean mapmaking traditions.

The Bodleian map collection holds 1,500,000 sheet maps and 20,000 atlases from all parts of the globe, with topographic and thematic maps dating from medieval times to the present day. The result of almost four centuries of building the collections is a veritable treasure trove of cartographic materials.

The antiquarian collection is considerable, and includes the ca. 1390 “Gough Map” – the oldest surviving geographically-recognisable map of Britain. There are also manuscript portolan charts, designed for safe passage at sea; and numerous English estate plans, including the Laxton Map of 1635, showing the open field system of this Nottinghamshire village, made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Bodleian holds the accompanying terrier describing each of the thousands of individual plots marked on the map, and that the Laxton landscape remains largely unchanged into the twenty-first century.

Digitized highlights include MS. Marsh 294, a copy of a 16th century Arabic portolan chart, and the Drink map of Oxford, an 1883 map created by the Temperance Union for Oxfordshire, which showed it was possible to buy a drink in every 22nd building in Oxford.

Nearly 800 fully-digitized Hebrew manuscripts and printed books from the medieval and early modern periods.

The Bodleian holds a large collection of Hebrew manuscripts, as well as early Hebrew and Yiddish printed books. The Library’s founder, Thomas Bodley, took a personal interest in Hebrew manuscripts, and after his death, the Library continued to enrich the Hebrew collections. In 1692 it purchased the collections of Dr Robert Huntington and Professor Edward Pococke. The Huntington collection includes the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides (1155-1204) with the author’s signature.

The acquisition in 1817 of the collection of Matteo Luigi Canonici represented the largest single purchase ever made by the Library. In 1829 the Bodleian bought the Oppenheim Library, thought to be the most important and magnificent Hebraica collection ever accumulated.

The digitized items include MS. Kennicott 1, ‘the Kennicott bible’ a magnificently decorated 15th century Hebrew bible donated to the library by Benjamin Kennicott; and MS. Kennicott 3, a rare example of a dated and lavishly illustrated Ashkenazi Pentateuch.

Important Persian manuscripts, including richly decorated works by Jāmī, Firdawsī and ‘Umar Khayyām.

The Bodleian acquired its first Persian manuscripts in 1602, the year it opened. The collections of Laud and Pococke contained a small number of Persian items, but it was with the collections of John and Thomas Greaves that the first Persian manuscripts of note entered the Library. MS. Greaves 1 (binding digitized only), a copy of Jāmī’s poem Yūsuf and Zulaykhā is prized for its beautiful lacquered binding and illustrations. John Greaves also made use of his copy of the Star Tables of Ulugh Beg – MS. Greaves 5 (sample only) – to publish his own astronomical and geographical observations.

Around 50 Persian items entered the Library in 1714 with the collections of Narcissus Marsh, but it was with the acquisition of the collections of Sir William and Sir Gore Ouseley that the Persian collections reached their zenith. Notable items which have been digitized include MS. Ouseley Add. 176, the Shāhnāmah (Book of Kings), completed in about 1435 in Shirāz for Ibrāhīm Sulṭan, one of the grandsons of Timur; MS. Ouseley Add. 175, a sumptuous edition of the works of 3 poets including Hāfiẓ of Shīrāz; and three further decorated manuscript copies of works by the poet Jāmī’: MS. Hyde 10, MS. Ouseley Add. 23 and MS. Elliott 254.

There are currently 140 Armenian manuscripts in the Bodleian Libraries. The earliest manuscript dates back to the 11th century, whilst the most recent one was composed in the early 20th century. Interest in Armenian culture and manuscripts goes back to the times of the foundation of the Bodleian Libraries with the first Armenian manuscripts entering the collection through the benefaction from Archbishop Laud (1573-1645). Throughout the centuries numerous manuscripts have been donated to or acquired by the library with a significant number of acquisitions dating to the late 19th century.

The digitized collection includes images from 79 Armenian manuscripts, including palaeographic samples digitized for the Digital Manuscripts Toolkit.

In 2021/22 the Carnegie Corporation generously funded full photography of several important manuscripts from the collection. Digitized items include MS. Arm. d. 11, the earliest Armenian volume preserved in the library, and MS. Arm. d. 13, a copy of the four Gospels illuminated by Mesrop of Xizan, one of the last important representatives of the Armenian school of miniaturists in New Julfa in the first half of the 17th century.

Select important Georgian texts spanning 900 years, from an 11th-century menologion to the 1907 Memorandum of the people of Georgia.

The Bodleian’s Georgian manuscripts and archives collection holds manuscripts and archival materials from all subject areas from the 7th to the 20th century CE. The nucleus of the Bodleian Library's rich holdings of Georgian books and manuscripts is the Wardrop Collection, formed by Sir Oliver Wardrop, the first British Chief Commissioner of the Transcaucasus, and his sister Marjory Wardrop. After Marjory's early death in 1909, the Marjory Wardrop Fund was founded for the encouragement of Georgian studies and from 1910, through this fund, the Bodleian became the beneficiary of all Marjory Wardrop's papers, books and manuscripts .They were supplemented by further donations from Sir Oliver until his death in 1948 and two more recent donations from Sir Oliver's descendants in 2017 and 2018.

Digitized items include MS. Georg. b. 1, an 11th century autograph manuscript by Giorgi Prokhore, the founder of the Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem, which contains important hagiographic texts and other significant ecclesiastical texts; and MS. Wardrop d. 17 and MS. Wardrop d. 27, two 17th century copies of the ‘The Knight in the Panther's Skin’, Vepʿxistqaosani (ვეფხისტყაოსანი), that are listed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

A small number of Sanskrit manuscripts and albums of Mughal paintings and calligraphy, from the Bodleian's extensive South Asian collection.

Consisting of approximately 9,000 manuscripts, the Bodleian Libraries house the largest known collection of Sanskrit and Prakrit manuscripts outside of the Indian sub-continent. This collection has been developing since the 17th century, when the first South Asian books were donated to the Library by Archbishop William Laud in 1635-40. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Bodleian’s Sanskrit manuscript holdings were described by Professor Friedrich Max Müller as the second best in Europe, surpassed only by those of the East India Company.

Thanks to two nineteenth-century benefactors, the Bodleian also hosts one of the most important collections of Mughal paintings in the world. The first collection of Mughal paintings came as part of the bequest of the antiquary and bibliophile Francis Douce in 1834. The Library’s holdings were augmented a few years later by paintings from the manuscript collection of the diplomat Sir Gore Ouseley, when in 1859 Mr J.B. Elliot, a Bengal civil servant who had purchased them after the diplomat’s death in 1844, presented to the Bodleian Mughal paintings and other fine manuscripts from Ouseley’s library.

Photographs ranging from early William Henry Fox Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron prints to 20th century images capturing modern British society.

The Bodleian boasts an extraordinary selection of photographic materials across its extensive archives and printed book collections. The holdings range from the experiments of early photographers in the 19th century to the negatives and prints of contemporary artists in the 20th and 21st centuries.

In Digital Bodleian are prints of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), pioneer and inventor of modern photography; the Henry Taylor album, comprising a selection of prints by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879); and Prints from the Hyman Collection of British Photographs, including portraits and landscapes, as well as photographs of natural, industrial and social documentary subjects. Also available are items from other Oxford organisations, including a series of images taken by Arnold Fairbairns to illustrate a history of Lincoln College by Stephen A. Warner (1880-1948).

Five early modern estate maps from the archives of Brasenose College, Oxford.

Brasenose College was founded in 1509 by William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Richard Sutton, a lawyer and the first lay founder of a college in Oxford or Cambridge. Before the foundation of the College part of the site was occupied by one of the medieval Oxford halls, Brasenose Hall. The name is thought to originate from a 'brazen nose' - a bronze door knocker in the shape of a nose. Famous alumni include Robert Burton, John Buchan, William Golding, Michael Palin, David Cameron and Kate Allen.

Thanks to the generosity of the William Delafield Charitable Trust, Brasenose College has been able to digitize some of its collection of 18th century maps showing College estates across England. More will be digitized in the future, and the College also hopes to include more of its extraordinary manuscript and archive collections.

A volume of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, with annotations from Edmund Campion.

Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1896, Campion Hall is one of six Permanent Private Halls at the University of Oxford. The Hall opened originally for the benefit of Jesuit undergraduates, but is now home to a thriving international community of graduate students, Fellows, and staff from diverse backgrounds and faiths.

The Library has been integral to its life and scholarly activity since the Hall’s foundation in 1896. It enjoys a privileged location within the Lutyens designed building. The Library Collection serves the Students and Fellows of the Hall and makes a distinctive contribution to the Libraries in the University. Its Collection mainly consists of Arts subjects, and it is especially strong in Modern Catholic Theology, Integral Ecology, and Jesuit studies.

A landmark enhancement to the holdings of the library came at the end of the academic year 2017/2018 with the closure of Heythrop College, whose rare books it was decided should come to Campion Hall. Included among them is an edition of the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, unique due to Edmund Campion’s annotations, volume one of which was selected as the first item from Campion Hall’s collection to be digitized.

Over 150 manuscripts, archives and printed books from the library at Christ Church, Oxford.

Christ Church Library houses one of the largest and richest collections of early printed books and manuscripts in Oxford. Its holdings are of international importance and are particularly rich in music, theology, classics, travel books, numismatics, early science and Hebrew studies. There are an estimated 80,000 early printed books, and well over 1,500 manuscripts in the Western, Byzantine, Hebrew, Arabic and Music collections. Other collections include Lewis Carroll materials, the extensive archives of Archbishop William Wake, second world war documents related to Winston Churchill and Viscount Portal, and the huge F.W. Brady collection of theatrical ephemera.

True to its legacy of enabling new scholarship by providing increased access to unique resources and committed to the sharing of knowledge, the library is engaged in digitising the rare and unique items, and all manuscripts collections. Items digitised to date include the Epistolary of Thomas Wolsey, Walter de Milemete's De Nobilitatibus, Sapientiis, et Prudentiis Regum and a calligraphic manuscript by Esther Inglis.

Manuscripts and printed books from the library at Exeter College, Oxford, including the 14th century Bohun Psalter.

The College has extensive special collections with material dating from the 12th to the 20th centuries. The collection of early printed books includes 75 incunables and other rare works, some thought to be unique to Exeter College. There are more than 200 manuscripts, 86 of which are medieval.

Exeter College is seeking to digitize and make accessible its special collections, starting with the College collection of medieval manuscripts, as well as some important later material and items from its archive. In 2018, the College digitized the 14th century Psalter of Humphrey de Bohun, which served as the prayer book to two English Queens, Elizabeth of York and Katherine of Aragon.

Harris Manchester College was founded in 1786 as the Manchester Academy and was one of the final Dissenting Academies to be established. Like its famous predecessor, the Warrington Academy, the College provided higher education to Nonconformists who were excluded from Oxford and Cambridge due to religious tests. While strongly associated with the Unitarian tradition, the College has always been non-denominational and open to all.

The College became Harris Manchester College, and a full constituent member of the University of Oxford, in 1996.

The archives house not only institutional administrative material relating to the College's own history, but also personal collections of prominent Nonconformists, Unitarians, and members of the College. The Library contains an extensive collection of antiquarian books, including items from the Warrington and Exeter academies, and some 11,000, mainly Nonconformist, tracts.

The digitised content available reflects the College’s Dissenting history and focus. For more information, please visit the Harris Manchester College website.

Manuscripts from the library at Jesus College, Oxford, including Welsh grammars and poetry.

Jesus College was founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth I, at the request of a Welsh lawyer and clergyman, Hugh Price. The manuscripts available in Digital Bodleian reflect Jesus College's historic links with Wales and the Welsh language. They include the Red Book of Hergest (MS 111), a vast anthology of Middle Welsh literature, which contains the magical tales of the Mabinogion, the legendary history of the Kings of Britain, the works of the Poets of the Princes, and the herbal remedies of the Physicians of Myddfai.

Three manuscripts from the library at Keble College, including its greatest treasure, the 13th century Regensburg Lectionary.

The Special Collections at Keble boast over 14,000 items, dating mainly from the 13th – 20th centuries. Included are bequests of Early Printed Books and manuscripts, as well as the personal library of John Keble. Spanning the range of liturgical, theological and philosophical subjects, the early print collections form an invaluable primary and secondary resource for scholars working on Christian thought, literature and history. The Library’s collection of 90 manuscripts and 100 incunabula is particularly fine for a young college - we were founded in 1870 - and includes missals, breviaries, lectionaries and books of hours.

Over the past five years, a major project has been to digitise and make accessible our College treasure, the hyper-illustrated Regensburg Lectionary, which is available here. Further information on the Regensburg Lectionary and Digitisation Project can be found on the College website.

Manuscripts, archives and early photography from the library at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Lincoln College was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, to combat the Lollard heresy. The early history of the College is preserved with remarkable completeness: records of early College business, fifteenth century Library catalogues and manuscripts all still form part of Lincoln’s historic collections, giving us an unparalleled picture of its intellectual and administrative history and of what was considered to be the finest College Library in Oxford.

The College has digitized part of a French prose apocalypse decorated with 68 miniatures; Arnold Fairbairns' magnificent 1908 photographic survey of Lincoln College buildings and estates; and the core College administrative records from 1472-1640 and 1577-1739.

Items from the library at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Founded in 1458 by Bishop William Waynflete, Magdalen College has amassed an impressive collection of manuscripts, rare books and archive material throughout its history. The basis of the library and archive collection was formed from a donation of 800 volumes sent by Waynflete himself, but this collection has naturally expanded substantially throughout the subsequent centuries.

Today, the college libraries and archive house a collection of around 20,000 rare books and several hundred manuscripts. These items reflect the diverse nature of study at the college and cover a range of different subjects, from theology and botany to astronomy and classics.

Many of the most interesting items in the Magdalen collection are available to view in Digital Bodleian. Of particular note is the Foundation Deed of the college from the Archives (MC: CRC/81), Cardinal Wolsey’s beautifully decorated Gospel Lectionary from 1529 (MS Lat 223), and the early fragments of the Gospel of St Matthew (MS Gr 17). These fragments may be the earliest known fragments of the New Testament and one of the earliest codices in existence.

Five items from the library at Merton College, Oxford.

Merton College Library has its origins in the 1270s when the college began building a collection of shared manuscript books for use by the fellows. Through donations, bequests, and purchases the number of books grew to over 1200 volumes by 1500. These were primarily books for study rather than for display or for private devotion. Of the 328 medieval manuscripts in the Merton library today, the vast majority were already in the college before the Reformation. The collection has a special significance as reflecting the academic interests of members of the medieval university.

Merton items in Digital Bodleian include the oldest manuscript preserved at Merton, a ninth-century copy of chronological tables of world history compiled by the early Christian historian Eusebius; and a manuscript containing Philippe de Thaon’s Bestiary in French with over forty marginal pen drawings of birds, beasts and insects.

The Oxford Union Society was founded in 1823 and is the most prestigious debating society in the world. From the Society’s first years, located in various undergraduate college rooms, to its present site in Frewin Court, there has always been a library.

The strength of the collections lies in the various Oxford University student publications and pamphlets that the Union Library has collected over the years: These journals, magazines, and curios provide a snapshot into student life in Oxford from the 19th Century onward. University and Union news, global affairs, politics, and more are all to be found in these items, often with a unique perspective through the eye of a university student.

The Union library is seeking to digitize and make accessible these student publications, starting with the 19th century Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduate Journal and its various permutations. These publications are often unique to the Union Library and not found to such an extent anywhere else in the world.

Manuscripts from the Library and Archive of Pembroke College, Oxford.

Pembroke College was founded in 1624 on the site of Broadgates Hall, a medieval hostel for law students. The College library was founded on a large bequest from John Hall (Master 1664-1710), which was later substantially added to by Henry Chandler (Fellow 1853-1889 and one of the Curators of the Bodleian Library) and George Birkbeck-Hill (1835-1903). Originally housed in Docklington’s Aisle in St Aldates Church, the library moved into Broadgates Hall and then into a purpose built building, The McGowin Library, in 1974.

The College Archive contains documents relating to the College’s history, buildings and administration as well as papers pertaining to individual members of the College, photographs and memorabilia. The material contained in the archives therefore provides both a source of formal records and management information for the College, and a picture of life at Pembroke through the years.

A number of items from our special collections have been digitised with support from The Helen Roll Charity and The Wellcome Trust. These have included MS 20, a Bohemian Book of Hours from before the time of Jan Huss and the Hussite rebellion, and MS 2, the Breviarium Bartholomei, which is a medical textbook from the early fifteenth century, as well as a number of key documents from the College Archive.

Manuscripts, printed books and architectural plans from the library at The Queen's College, Oxford.

There has been a library at Queen’s since its foundation in 1341 by Robert Eglesfield, Chaplain to Queen Philippa, consort of Edward III. The present Upper Library was built between 1692 and 1695 to house large donations from Thomas Barlow, one-time Provost of the College and later Bishop of Lincoln, and from Sir Joseph Williamson.

The Queen’s College collection is set apart from all other Oxford college libraries thanks to a donation of £30,000 in 1841 by Robert Mason, an Old Member, who stipulated in his will that the money had to be spent solely on the Library within three years. The Librarian of the time showed exceptional foresight: he not only purchased a great number of modern books, but also a wide selection of the greatest editions of printed books from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. By the late 1840s Queen’s had what was probably the richest college library collection in the country.

The items digitized to date highlight the richness of the collection, including a rare surviving copy of Miles Coverdale’s Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes, and three manuscripts once owned by Henry VIII.

Manuscripts and archives from Somerville College, Oxford.

Somerville was founded in 1879 as a women’s college. As women did not have access to the University’s library facilities until 1920, Somerville built and maintained its own collection and from its earliest days received important additions from supporters. These include the library of John Stuart Mill; the papers of Mary Somerville; the watercolours, books and antiquities collection of Victorian writer and traveller Amelia Edwards; the letters of Vernon Lee; photographs and watercolours of Far Eastern traveller Emily Kemp; photographs and letters of Vera Brittain and papers of her daughter Baroness Williams of Crosby.

Also digitized is an early graphic novel written by traveller and writer Amelia Edwards, 'Mrs. Roliston's Travelling Adventures.' Written by the 16 year old Edwards, it foreshadows her own life. In middle age Edwards also decided to see the world, setting off on an adventure which would change the course of her life, and the course of the study of ancient Egypt. On returning from a momentous trip up the Nile, she set up the Egypt Exploration Fund which was instrumental in professionalising and regularising the excavation of Egyptian burial sites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Manuscripts from the Library at St John's College.

The library provision at St John’s College began in 1555, the year of the College’s foundation, with about 150 volumes, mostly manuscripts. In subject matter, these were mainly theological, philosophical and legal books together with texts by classical authors given by John White of Southwick (who may have been the brother or cousin of the College founder, Sir Thomas White) and other friends of the Founder. Many important donations followed, including those of William Laud and William Paddy in the 17th century.

Today, St John’s College’s special collections include around 200 medieval manuscripts, around 20,000 volumes printed before 1850, several Oriental manuscripts, over 200 modern manuscripts, and important collections of personal papers and books owned by Robert Graves, A.E. Housman, and Spike Milligan, and others.

The College has started a large-scale digitization programme that combines metadata and digitization work. The first regular new contributions to Digital Bodleian began in 2023.

The Bodleian Libraries are digitizing 100 manuscript works of Sanskrit and related South Asian manuscripts.

The Bodleian is proud to be the repository of some 8,700 Sanskrit manuscripts, the largest known collection outside the Indian subcontinent. The collection spans approximately 1,000 years of the continent’s cultural heritage, and covers every branch of Sanskrit literature.

This project will digitize a number of important works from the collection, alongside items identified as particularly valuable for teaching and research.

The digitization of these manuscript works has been made possible through a benefaction from the late John P. Clay, an alumnus of the University of Oxford and founder and benefactor of the Clay Sanskrit Library (CSL). The CSL has prepared editions of over fifty works of Classical Sanskrit literature spanning two millennia, as part of its aim to bring great works of Sanskrit literature to a worldwide audience. These are available as digital editions as part of the Digital Clay Sanskrit Library (eCSL).

The Bodleian Libraries are digitizing 94 medieval manuscripts from the former library of the Mainz Charterhouse in a project funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

The Carthusian abbey in Mainz was founded in 1320, the first Charterhouse in the Rhineland area. At its greatest extent its library consisted of roughly 1,500 volumes, of which over 800 are known to survive today. Most of the surviving manuscripts are now in the Mainz Stadtbibliothek, however some volumes were removed or sold from the abbey during the Thirty Years’ War. A number of these manuscripts were acquired by English collectors and are now in the British Library (manuscripts acquired by Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel) and the Bodleian Library (manuscripts acquired by William Laud).

The surviving manuscripts include many works relating to sermons and preaching, as well as sacred histories and saints' lives, legal manuscripts, medicine, philosophy and grammar, and classical texts.

The current digitization project will make this rich collection fully available, and will complete the digitization of the Bodleian’s most important collections of manuscripts from the German speaking lands.

The Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel and Bodleian Libraries are digitizing nearly 600 medieval manuscripts written in German-speaking lands, in a project funded by The Polonsky Foundation between 2019 and 2021.

The collecting work of William Laud – chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1630 to 1641 – brought many manuscripts to the Bodleian during a time of religious strife in both Germany and England. He and his agents assembled around 320 manuscripts from Würzburg Cathedral, the Mainz Charterhouse, and Eberbach Abbey. The Würzburg manuscripts include a significant body of Carolingian manuscripts, such as a ninth-century copy of Gregory the Great’s homilies.

The Dutch philological scholar Franciscus Junius later donated some of the Bodleian’s most significant Germanic manuscripts, and the nineteenth century brought a further wave of German manuscripts to Oxford with the purchase of the Canonici collection, the illuminated manuscripts of the bequest of Francis Douce, and the donation from the sons of Sir William Hamilton. The library has continued to acquire German manuscripts in the last century, including the recent purchase of a prayer book made by a Cistercian nun at Medingen Abbey.

Incunabula and Greek and Hebrew manuscripts digitized for The Polonsky Foundation Digitization Project (2012-2016).

Between 2012 and 2017, the Bodleian Libraries and the Vatican Library collaborated to digitize 1.5 million images of manuscripts and early printed books. The project was funded by The Polonsky Foundation, and was the first large-scale collaborative effort of its kind. The 1,567 items here represent the Bodleian's output from the project.

Collections were selected for digitization based on areas of shared strength between the two libraries: Hebrew manuscripts, Greek manuscripts, and incunabula or 15th-century printed books, primarily ones printed in Italy. Over the five years of the project, the Bodleian was able to digitize nearly the entire Barocci collection of Greek manuscripts; several import collections of Hebrew manuscripts; and more than 500 printed books, including the Bodleian's copy of the Gutenberg Bible.

Other highlights include the Douce Pliny, the Kennicott Bible, and MS. Barocci 170, a richly illustrated copy of Leo the Wise's Oracula.

Images with detailed descriptions from mid-20th century 35mm filmstrip negatives and positive slides.

The filmstrips, illustrating a particular manuscript or a particular theme, were compiled and published by the Library from the 1960s onwards, and were accompanied by handlists which form the basis of the descriptions. Some more modern material is also included, such as bindings, examples of the revival of calligraphy and illumination in the 19th and 20th centuries, and antiquarian drawings of medieval monuments. A small number of images are derived from material in the Oxford University Archives.

The filmstrips and slides were digitized in 2007, and made available on a precursor site to Digital Bodleian. They were migrated to Digital Bodleian in 2018.

In 2021-22, the Bodleian Libraries are undertaking a project to digitize selections from its far-reaching literary manuscript collections. This project has been generously funded by The Tolkien Trust.

In keeping with Professor J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic interests, the project has had a particular focus on literary manuscripts of the medieval and early modern period, including works from authors such as Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Boccaccio. Highlights include King Alfred’s Old English translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, manuscript verses by the seventeenth-century poet James Shirley, and MS. Tanner 346, an anthology of courtly poetry.

The manuscripts digitised as part of this project, however, do not solely concentrate on medieval and early modern Europe. Modern manuscripts selected include an autograph manuscript of E.F. Benson’s The Queen of Tilling [Mapp and Lucia], the manuscripts of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, and notebooks of the poet Jenny Joseph, including a draft of her best-known poem ‘Warning’. Manuscripts have also been selected from a range of global traditions, from Japanese illuminated manuscripts of the seventeenth century to a fourteenth-century Arabic copy of the Maqāmāt by Ḥarīrī.

Archival material relating to the formal admission of women to the University of Oxford, including admissions records, annual reports, calendars, photographs, scrapbooks, minutes and letters.

October 2020 marked one-hundred years since women were granted the right to matriculate and therefore to take degrees at Oxford. Despite the significance of this landmark year, women had studied at the University long before 1920. In fact, they had been making their mark on the University and advocating for women’s access to an Oxford education since the 1860s.

Education and Activism: Women at Oxford, 1878-1920, is a digital archive project that commemorates the centenary year by bringing together records of the former women’s colleges (Lady Margaret Hall, Somerville, St Anne’s, St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s) into a central digital archive. Through the digitization of more than 7,000 archival images, this project will change the way that we understand and research the history of higher education in Oxford, the United Kingdom and beyond.

Printed books, maps and manuscripts from the Bodleian's Chinese special collections.

This project, begun in 2014, represents an ongoing effort to make available parts of the Bodleian’s extensive pre-modern Chinese holdings. To date, this project has digitized over 1,000 items, including editions of popular songs from the Southern Min region; Daoist manuscripts of the Yao people in northern Thailand; Democracy Wall publications, 1978-1980, and 19th century protestant missionary texts.

This project has been generously funded by Dr HD Chung and Chung Hon Dak Foundation.

The Bodleian Libraries are home to 140 Armenian manuscripts, with the oldest one dating back to the 11th century. In 2021/22, thanks to the generous funding of The Carnegie Corporation, the Bodleian undertook a project to digitize 14 manuscripts (and one rare printed book) from this collection. The selection fell on the manuscripts which, on the one hand, were too fragile to be handled regularly and, on the other hand, could be of significant use to scholars working in a variety of disciplines such as medieval history of the Caucasus and the Near East, theology, art history, and material history.

Five of the manuscripts – MS. Arm. c. 1, Arm. d. 3, Arm. d. 13, Arm. d. 22, and Arm. d. 25 – contain well-preserved illuminations of a whole range of biblical motifs and scenes, some of which were produced in prominent monastic schools of illumination such as Xizan (today’s Hizan in Turkey) and New Julfa (in Isfahan, Iran).

The other manuscripts include the Bodleian’s oldest Armenian manuscript MS. Arm. d. 11, which is John Chrysostom’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, and MS Arm. c. 3 – a Menologion (Յայսմաւուրք), copied between the late 15th and early 16th century and containing a calendar with the feast days and biographies of the saints celebrated by the Armenian Church throughout the year.

125 photographs of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes, captured by Adolphe Braun in 1870.

Adolphe Braun (1812-1877) was a French photographer whose studio, Braun et Cie., specialised in the development of landscape pictures and art historical images. The University of Oxford's Visual Resources Centre holds a collection of 125 loose mounted photographs of the Sistine Chapel, taken by Braun and his sons, Henri and Gaston, in 1869. These images meticulously surveyed the frescoes decorating the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. At the time of their release they constituted the only existing photographic record of the chapel’s interior. These large photographs (37x48 cm) exemplify Braun’s technical abilities in successfully capturing the curved surface of the ceiling.

In 2018 work was undertaken to research and digitize the photographs.

Over 4,000 digitized items from the Bodleian Libraries' collections of piano music intended for the amateur market in mid-Victorian Britain.

What’s the Score at the Bodleian? (2013) was a project to increase access to music scores from the Bodleian’s collections through a combination of rapid digitization and the creation of descriptive metadata through crowd-sourcing. Over 4,000 scores were digitized and described from 64 boxes of unbound, uncatalogued sheet music, mostly for piano, from the mid-Victorian period. The scores include dance music and other pieces designed for home entertainment, many with illustrated covers.

The images and metadata were migrated to Digital Bodleian in 2018.

Records and papers of Sir Arthur Evans, relating to his excavations at Knossos on Crete between 1900 and 1931.

The Sir Arthur Evans Archive is held by the Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum. It consists of the archaeological records and papers of Sir Arthur Evans (Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, 1884-1908), which he bequeathed to the Museum upon his death in 1941. A large part of these relate to his excavations at the Bronze Age ‘Palace of Minos’ at Knossos on Crete, carried out between 1900 and 1931.

Digital Bodleian currently holds the series of architectural plans and elevations and archaeological sections, which relate both to the architecture of the site as it was uncovered and to the reconstructions carried out in situ by Evans and his architects. These reveal information not disclosed in the selectively published plans and/or obscured by the restorations. The series of fresco reconstruction drawings, which reveal different stages and versions of reconstruction also have a crucial role in revealing information about the original state of the frescoes lost or obscured in the published reconstructions.

Early Manuscripts at Oxford University (originally the Celtic Manuscripts Project) was among the first experiments in digitizing medieval manuscripts at the Bodleian. It was a collaboration between the Bodleian Library, Balliol College, Corpus Christi College, Jesus College, Magdalen College, Merton College, and St John’s College. Beginning in 1995, the project photographed almost ninety manuscripts written between the ninth and nineteenth centuries. It focused on major treasures from Oxford libraries to create wider availability for originals which are often too fragile to handle. Originally available on a separate website, the photographs are now part of Digital Bodleian.

This collection includes many of the oldest manuscripts in Oxford libraries, such as the earliest copy of the Rule of St Benedict, written around 700 (MS. Hatton 48); St Dunstan’s Classbook, designed for teaching in the tenth century (MS. Auct. F. 4. 32); and the oldest copy of The Song of Roland, from the early twelfth century (MS. Digby 23b). It also includes some later manuscripts, such as a five-volume set of Fons memorabilium uniuersi, a humanist encyclopedia from the fifteenth century (Balliol College MSS. 238A, 238B, 238C, 238D, 238E).

Over 800 cartoons by a host of British caricaturists, including James Gilray, Thomas Rowlandson, Isaac and George Cruikshank, William Heath, Charles Williams and George Woodward.

The political cartoons in this collection are mostly from the collection of Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847-1916).  George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859-1925) bought the extra-illustrated volumes of A.M. Broadley's Napoleon in Caricature (1911), J.H.Rose's The Life of Napoleon I (1901) , and Lord Rosebery's Napoleon, the last phase (1900), at the sale of Broadley's library in 1916. At that time he was Chancellor of Oxford University, and his bequest of Napoleon-related books and prints, including the political cartoons, came to the library in 1926.

18th and 19th century board games, writing blanks and other items printed for children's entertainment and education from the Bodleian's John Johnson Collection, Harding Collection and Opie Collection.

In the mid-2000s, all 18th and 19th century board games in the John Johnson Collection (mostly single sheets) and all educational writing blanks from the Johnson, Opie and Harding Collections were digitized, together with other games of the same period, selected for their educational content.

Writing blanks (also known as school pieces) were usually given to children at Christmas. They would fill the space within the printed, and often hand-coloured, borders with a sample of their handwriting. The completed school piece would then be given to parents, relations or friends.

Subjects represented in the games and writing blanks include arithmetic, art, astronomy, geography, history, literature, spelling, and religion.

Sibthorp and Smith's Flora Graeca (1806-1840), illustrated by Ferdinand Bauer and often described as 'Oxford's finest botanical treasure', is considered the most splendid and expensive Flora ever produced. The ten volumes document the flora of the Mediterranean, based on the studies of John Sibthorp, Sherardian Professor of Botany at the university from 1784 until his death in 1796. The volumes are accompanied by illustrations executed by Austrian botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer, who joined Sibthorp on his Mediterranean expeditions.

A project in the mid-2000s digitized a full set of the Flora Graeca, together with Bauer's original drawings and watercolours, on which the published engravings were based. Also digitized were Bauer's "Fauna Graeca" drawings of animals of the Mediterranean, created for a never-published work, and a unique series of topographic "Mediterranean Scenes".

Complete facsimiles of publications from the early-19th-century expeditions to Egypt by Champollion and Rosellini.

The Rosellini and Champollion expedition publications are an invaluable and irreplaceable record because they contain information and illustrations of Egyptian monuments made early in the period of modern Egyptology. They are among the oldest and most important publications to include accurate copies of reliefs and inscriptions, and are still regularly consulted for many of them.

These items were digitized in the mid-2000s for a precursor site to Digital Bodleian. Colour illustrations were captured in full colour, while text and line drawings were captured as bitonal images.

Key works in 19th-century entomology from the library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, with full-colour specimen drawings. Digitized in the mid-2000s for a precursor site to Digital Bodleian.

Key Works of Geological Literature, 1600-1900 was project to digitize rare books and maps relating to the development of geology, particularly of the "English School". The digitized items include rare works important to the history of science, geology, palaeontology, petrology, and mineralogy. Many are vividly illustrated, depicting fossils, rock sequences and landscapes.

The project ran from 2002 to 2004, and included over 150 items from the Bodleian and Oxford University Museum of Natural History library. Maps and drawings were captured in full colour, and and text was captured in black-and-white. The images were migrated to Digital Bodleian in 2015.

Selected items from the Bodleian Libraries’ Abinger collection, which comprises the correspondence and papers of three generations of the Godwin and Shelley families. Includes the diaries of philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836), and the Frankenstein manuscripts of Mary Shelley (1797-1851).

Medieval and early modern manuscripts and papers donated to the Bodleian by antiquary Elias Ashmole (1617-1692).

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) was born and educated in Lichfield. He began his career as a solicitor, but in 1644 entered the service of the Crown as a commissioner of excise. He entered the Office of Arms as Windsor herald after the Restoration, and retired in 1672.

His collection comprises important medical, astrological, and alchemical manuscripts, and is also strong in heraldry, local history, and, to a lesser extent, in Middle English and 17th-century poetry. The foundation of his Museum at Oxford was made possible by his acquisition by bequest from his friend John Tradescant of a large collection of 'curiosities'. They arrived when the building was ready in 1683, and it was here that his bequest of manuscripts was housed until their transference to the Bodleian in 1860.

Greek manuscripts collected by Francesco Barocci (1537-1604).

The collection of Greek manuscripts was formed by the mathematician Francesco Barozzi (1537-1604), who lived for most of his life in Crete, and by his nephew Iacopo Barozzi of Venice (1562-1617), who inherited and added to it. The manuscripts are wide-ranging in date and subject-matter, and many retain their early Greek or Cretan bindings.

The collection was brought to England by Henry Featherstone in 1628. On 26 Jan. 1629 the manuscripts were deposited with William Laud at London House. At his instigation they were purchased by William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of Oxford University, and by him presented through Laud to the University in May that year.

Greek, Hebrew, Italian and Latin manuscripts from the collection of Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727-1807), purchased by the Bodleian in 1817.

Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727-1807) was born in Venice and became a Jesuit in 1743. When Accademico of the college of St. Catherine at Parma he formed a first collection of medals and books; but in 1768, when the Jesuit Order was suppressed in the kingdom of Naples and duchy of Parma, it was confiscated. In 1773 a further suppression of the Order took place, and Canonici retired to Venice, where he collected coins, statuary, printed books and MSS., chiefly during autumn journeys to Rome, Naples, Florence or elsewhere. He always hoped that the Jesuits would be restored, and intended in that case to make them his heir, but eventually died at Treviso without making a will.

Canonici's collections passed to his brother Giuseppe, and on his death in 1807 to his nephews Giovanni Perissinotti and Girolamo Cardina, who divided them. To the former fell the MSS., then about 3550 in number, and, after many attempts to sell them, the Bodleian became the purchaser of the greater part in 1817. The formal list of volumes handed over was signed on 18 May 1817, and the books probably arrived later that year.

Manuscripts collected by Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), given to the Bodleian in 1634-9.

Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-65), natural philosopher and courtier, was bequeathed in 1632 the scientific and historical manuscripts of Thomas Allen, his tutor at Gloucester Hall, Oxford. He presented these to the Bodleian in 1634.

Books and manuscripts collected by Francis Douce (1757-1834) and bequeathed to the Bodleian, including books of hours, French romances, and early English literature.

Francis Douce (1757-1834) was educated to be a merchant and a lawyer, but is best known for his literary and antiquarian pursuits, and as a great book collector. He was a Keeper of the Manuscripts at the British Museum from c. 1807 to 1811, and took part in the preparation of the Lansdowne and Harleian catalogues. His large library of manuscripts and printed books had particular strengths in English literature, especially Shakespeare, illuminated Books of Hours and French romances. He bequeathed all his manuscripts, printed books, coins and prints to the Bodleian Library.

A catalogue of all Douce manuscripts and printed books by H. O. Coxe was published in 1840, and later supplemented by entries in the Summary Catalogue.

Medieval manuscripts donated by the sons of Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803).

The Hamilton manuscripts are believed to have belonged entirely to monasteries in Erfurt. Many certainly formed part of the library of the ancient Benedictine monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, secularized in 1803, and some of that of the Carthusian house of St. Salvator founded in 1372.

They were purchased by Count von Bülow following the destruction of the monastic libraries in 1806; after his death (probably in 1836) some of these were bought by Mr. John Broad, who presented them to Sir William Hamilton, his former mentor at Edinburgh. After Sir William Hamilton's death in 1856 the manuscripts were given to the Bodleian in 1857 by his sons, Sir William Stirling Hamilton and Hubert Hamilton.

Manuscripts from the collection of Robert Huntington (1637-1701), including Arabic, Coptic, Hebrew and Syriac manuscripts.

Early English and other manuscripts collected by Francis Junius (1589-1677).

Franciscus Junius the Younger (1591-1677) was born in Heidelberg. Brought up among the Calvinist scholars of the University of Leiden, he began his career as a theologian. In 1621 he came to England as tutor and librarian to the household of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. His work for Arundel resulted in the publication of De pictura veterum, a study of the classical arts.

From 1651 to 1674 Junius again lived in the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to the study of the Old Germanic languages, culminating in the publication in 1665 of the first edition of the Gothic Bible, together with a Gothic dictionary.

He finally returned to England and spent his last years in Oxford. Shortly before his death, Junius donated his Anglo-Saxon manuscripts to the Bodleian. The Bodleian also possesses the portrait of Junius by Van Dyck.

Chinese, Hebrew, Persian and Western manuscripts donated by Archbishop William Laud (1573-1644/5).

William Laud (1573-1645) was born at Reading, Berkshire, attended St John's College, Oxford, was ordained priest in 1601 and became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. Archbishop Laud's donation to the Library comprised 1242 volumes which were received in three main instalments in 1635, 1636 and 1639, and in smaller ones in 1640-1. It was a miscellaneous collection in at least 20 languages, both European and Asian, partly acquired from Germany, especially Würzburg.

Western and Hebrew manuscripts from the collection of Thomas Marshall (1621-85).

Thomas Marshall (1621-85), a pupil and friend of Francis Junius, was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and graduated in 1645. Having served in the Royalist garrison of Oxford during the Civil War, he went abroad, and served as chaplain to the Merchant Adventurers in Holland from 1650 to 1672. He was elected a Fellow of Lincoln College in 1668, and Rector in 1672; from 1681 he was also Dean of Gloucester Cathedral.

Over half the manuscripts Marshall bequeathed to the Bodleian are Oriental, and are not described here. His printed books are now divided between the Bodleian and Lincoln College; his Civil War pamphlets are also in the College. Marshall’s own correspondence is to be found scattered in several other collections in the Bodleian and elsewhere.

Selected items from the archive of Oxfam GB, held at the Bodleian Libraries. Includes posters produced by Oxfam GB’s communications function.

Hebrew books and manuscripts from the collection of Rabbi David ben Abraham Oppenheim (1664-1736).

Persian manuscripts from the collection of Sir William Ouseley (1767-1842), purchased by the Bodleian in 1843.

Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew and Persian manuscripts from the collection of Edward Pococke (1604-91), bought by the Bodleian in 1692.

Books and manuscripts bequeathed by John Selden (1584-1654) to the Bodleian.

John Selden (1584-1654) matriculated at Oxford from Hart Hall in 1600, but left the University without a degree. He entered Parliament in 1621, and from 1640 to 1653 represented Oxford University in Parliament.

8,000 volumes of manuscripts and printed books which he bequeathed to the Library were received in 1659 and housed in the newly built West End. The manuscripts are divided into four series: Arch. Selden. A, Selden Superius (nearly all oriental), Arch. Selden. B, and Selden Supra.

Botanical and taxonomical books and manuscripts from the libraries of William Sherard (1659-1728), J. Bobart, R. Morison, J. J. Dillenius, J. Sibthorp, G. Williams and C. G. B. Daubeny.