Acknowledgements

We warmly thank the Institute of Text Analysis and Applications (IATEXT) at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for hosting the ECEG database online, in particular Alicia Rodríguez-Álvarez and Gregorio Rodríguez-Herrera for their interest and to Carlos Martel Lamas and Francisco Javier Carreras-Riudavets for their technical input.

We are immensely grateful for the generous assistance of library staff at the following institutions: In England: The John Rylands, Deansgate, Manchester, and The Manchester University Library in Manchester; Birmingham Archives & Heritage, Birmingham Central Library; Durham Cathedral University Library, Durham; The Brotherton Library, Leeds University Library; Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool; The British Library, The Senate House Library, The London Institute of Education, and Victoria and Albert Museum Archives in London; Robinson Library, Newcastle University; Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham; Bodleian Library, Oxford; York Minster Library, York. In Scotland: Library and Historic Collections, University of Aberdeen; National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Glasgow University Library and The Mitchell Library in Glasgow. In Ireland: National Library of Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin. In Wales: The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. In America: The Lilly Library, University of Indiana, Bloomington; Boston Public Library, Boston; Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.; Honnold Library, Claremont Colleges, CA; Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC; Dartmouth College Library, Hanover NH; Archives and Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE; Butler Library, Columbia University, New York; The New York Public Library, New York; The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Library Company Philadelphia, Philadelphia; American Antiquarian Society, Worcester Mass.; Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University Library, NH.