The Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, has been digitising its manuscripts–including lots of medieval devotional books and chronicles, copies of poems by Chaucer, Langland, Lydgate, and Donne, plus gems such as the notebook kept by Milton which includes his drafts of Lycidas and a first go at Paradise Lost (in dramatic form). You don’t have to be able to read old hands or foreign languages to appreciate them–many are illustrated, including an elegant volume described as ‘Drawings of Roman Sculpture Etc’ (R.17.3), dated to the 1580s.

You can access the full list of ‘virtual manuscripts’ by clicking here.