The Henry VIII Manuscript contributes considerably to our critical understanding of the connections between poetry and power in early Renaissance society - because of the prominence of its chief author, the king himself, and also because of its literary reflection of the social and political elements of the early Tudor court. The lyrics of the Henry VIII Manuscript thoroughly document the fictions of the early Tudor court constructed and upheld by the courtiers of the day. As such, the Henry VIII Manuscript provides a rare opportunity for examining the light, earlier lyrical works of Henry VIII. Renaissance English Text Society v39.

Described by Colin Burrow as 'the richest surviving record of early Tudor poetry and of the literary activities of 16th-century women,' the Devonshire Manuscript (BL MS Add. 17492) is a verse miscellany belonging to the 1530s and early 1540s, including some 194 items including complete poems, verse fragments and excerpts from longer works, anagrams, and other ephemeral jottings attributed to Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, Lady Margaret Douglas, Richard Hattfield, Mary Fitzroy (nee Howard), Thomas Howard, Edmund Knyvett, Anthony Lee, and Henry Stewart, as well transcriptions of the work of others or original works by prominent court figures such as Mary Shelton, Lady Margaret Douglas, Mary (Howard) Fitzroy, Lord Thomas Howard, and, possibly, Anne Boleyn. This edition publishes the contents of the manuscript in their entirety, documenting well the manuscript's place as the earliest sustained example in English of men and women writing together in a community.