This document provides an overview of the development of Electronic Beowulf, a digital edition and analysis tool for the Old English poem Beowulf. It traces the evolution of Electronic Beowulf from early versions in the 1990s that provided basic text and images, to later versions that included advanced analytical features like hidden letter detection, translation, and metrics tools. The document highlights some of the key features and capabilities of different Electronic Beowulf releases and discusses plans to make a full online version available in the future.

1. Electronic Beowulf @ 21
Andrew Prescott

2. Page from the UK Web Archive snapshot of the
British Library’s first web service, Portico, 18 April
1995
The British Library’s Initiatives for
Access programme

3. Electronic Beowulf pages on the British Library
website, 18 April 1995

4. The Kontron ProgRes 3012

8. Beowulf manuscript,
folio 179 recto, under
plain and under ultra-
violet light

10. British Library MS
Cotton Otho B. x,
fol. 13(54v)r
Early eleventh-
century collection of
mostly saints' lives
by the monk Ælfric,
severely damaged
in the fire at
Ashburnham House
in 1731

13. Image prepared
by Kevin Kiernan
to accompany a
1995 article on
Electronic Beowulf
for ‘Computers in
Libraries’,
including images
of Thorkelin
transcripts and
some of the first
‘hidden letter’
shots

14. Splash screen from Electronic Beowulf 1.0 (1999)

15. Electronic Beowulf 1.0 (1999), running under the
now defunct Netscape 4

16. Hidden letters revealed by fibre optic
backlighting, and recorded with detailed
textual notes (from Electronic Beowulf 3.0)

17. Reading under ultra-violet light from folio
157 verso of the Beowulf manuscript
(shown in Electronic Beowulf 3.0)

18. Conybeare’s 1817 collation (left) and Madden’s 1824
collation (right), showing Madden’s tracing of the first
lines of Beowulf, viewed in Electronic Beowulf 3.0

19. Edition and glossary (displayed in
Electronic Beowulf 2.0)

20. Image Based XML (IBX) tool

21. Splash screen from Electronic Beowulf 3.0 (2011)

22. Electronic Beowulf 3.0: mouseover access to
translation and metrics tool

23. Metrics tool in Electronic Beowulf 3.0

24. Testing conjectural restorations with Electronic Beowulf:
the usual restoration of this word on Folio 179r, bemað,
is too wide for the space in the manuscript, but beget
fits neatly

25. Benedictional of St Æthelwold, as presented in British
Library ‘Digitised Manuscripts’ web resource:
www.bl.uk/manuscripts/

26. William Schipper, 'Dry-Point Compilation Notes
in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold', British
Library Journal, 20 (1994), 17-34

27. The dry point note ‘In’ is not visible in this recent
digitisation of f. 27v of the Benedictional of St Æthelwold. It
is more clearly visible in the 1910 photographic facsimile.

28. Recent British Library digitisation of Cotton MS.
Vitellius A.xv: www.bl.uk/manuscripts

29. Experimental online access to Electronic Beowulf 3.0, 2013. The eventual
full online version will require substantial re-engineering to replace the

30. To get further information about the development of
online access to Electronic Beowulf, join the e-mail list at:
jiscmail.ac.uk/EBEOWULF

31. Kevin Kiernan demonstrates Electronic
Beowulf