It is an important portion of the private library of the New York financier and book collector Carl Pforzheimer. Another significant portion, devoted to Shelley and the Romantics, is now in the New York Public Library . The Library of Early English Literature contains superb examples of the plays, poems, novels, essays, polemical writings, and translations of the best, most influential, and most representative English writers of the period 1475 to 1700.
All major writers are available in first and important editions.
A copy of Milton's Comus with the author's manuscript annotations. Several quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays, and all four of the folio editions of his works. The first book printed in English, the first complete English Bible, and several copies of the King James Bible. A massive series of 17th century news-letters in manuscript, and letters and other manuscripts by Queen Elizabeth I, John Evelyn, John Locke, and others. Although the Pforzheimer collection is marvellously rich, the researcher in early English literature should keep in mind that in many cases books and manuscripts by authors represented in the Pforzheimer collection can be found in other editions and even other copies in the Ransom Center.