Most of the manuscripts in the Manuscript Collection date from after 1500. A considerable part consists of drafts and outlines – texts intended for publication in print at a later stage. They are not finished products. With their many corrections, alterations, and additions they are of great interest to the student of a writer’s working process.

Letters, diaries, and other private papers are found in the collection in large numbers. Generally speaking, this material was not written for publication. It offers an eminent chance for the modern scholar to study minor and major figures of the past at close range.

The Manuscript Collection possesses manuscripts written by towering European figures such as Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam. But the large majority of the manuscripts is Danish. Most of the writers of the 19th and 20th centuries – along with other significant figures in Danish cultural life – are represented. The Manuscript Collection is Denmark’s archive for the humanities.