The Tudor Project presents texts newly-transcribed from original manuscripts or fifteenth- and sixteenth-century printed editions. In this respect it is complementary to the Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Full-Text Database, in which texts from this period are largely reprints of copyright-free nineteenth or twentieth-century editions. Many of the texts we include have not been edited or printed since the sixteenth century. It differs from EEBO (Early English Books Online) in its provision of more detailed apparatus and structural markup, additional collations of variant texts, and other ancillary information.

We retain all original spellings, punctuation and capitalisation in the texts, and catalogue the use of decorative letters, wood-cut illustrations, and decorations in early imprints. Emendations are kept to a minimum. We correct obvious scribal or compositor errors, and make other emendations for sense where such seem necessary. Some emendations are based upon our collations of variant texts. We normally print the earliest or most complete copy of a text, recording substantive variants from later or fragmentary versions wherever possible. The treatment of a particular text (and of variant versions where they exist) is detailed in header information at the beginning of each text-file.