Information Technologies and Libraries: Manuscript of John Donne's poems digitized by the British Library

The British Library digitized a rare manuscript of John Donne's poems known as the "Melford Hall Manuscript". It was discovered only in 2018. Now it is available online. Specialists will have an opportunity to explore it in the library's reading room from the summer of 2021.

The "Melford Hall Manuscript" is a handwritten volume of over 400 pages. A significant part is Donne's poetry (130 handwritten poems) of various genres: songs and sonnets, elegies, epigrams, satire, epithalamus, poetic messages, notes on the sermons and religious works. The collection includes verses dated 1625-1635. Probably, it relates to the poet's lifetime.

Besides, the collection features selected poems by other poets of the time - Francis Beaumont, Thomas Carew, Sir Thomas Overbury, as well as six previously unknown unattributed works.

The "Melford Hall Manuscript" is considered one of Donne's five largest early manuscript collections. In particular, it reveals the way of its distribution among select readers - Donne's close friends and associates, as well as people of their circle. The poet himself did not want to promote his works to a general audience. Only one English poem by Donne, recorded by his hand, has survived to our time.