While the digitization of early English printed books has revolutionized literary scholarship, a massive field of textual production, one that permeated every facet of early modern life, remains comparatively understudied: manuscripts. Poetry, drama, prose fiction, letters, diaries, depositions, wills, recipe books — the rich and varied manuscript archive offers ever-expanding horizons for research as new digitization projects are making manuscripts around the world more accessible than ever before. This seminar will introduce participants to a wide range of manuscript genres while providing sustained practice in paleography. We will begin by examining the kinds of manuscripts most closely relevant to literary study (authorial holographs, verse miscellanies, dramatic scripts, playhouse documents) and move on to other forms of manuscript production of the time (letters, government documents, commonplace books, financial records). The goals of this seminar are: to introduce participants to the scope of early modern manuscript culture; to develop participants’ skills in transcribing early modern hands; to provide orientation to the resources that will allow participants to locate and access manuscripts; and to give participants a sense of the new research possibilities on manuscript sources.