The Collation
Research and Exploration at the Folger
Women Patrons as Playmakers
A guest post by Elizabeth Kolkovich In the summer of 1602, Alice Egerton, Countess of Derby, did something rather extraordinary. When Queen Elizabeth I visited her house, she brought to the forefront the female patrons who usually remained behind the…
Warwick Castle Shakespeare Library
Whoof, it looks like the numbers and letters in this month’s Crocodile Mystery were a bit too cryptic! In this case, the alphanumeric collections are shelf marks. In particular, they are shelf marks from the Warwick Castle Shakespeare Library, ca.…
Our new catalog is here!
In April we announced the preview of our new catalog, and now it is time to make it official: the new catalog is here! Visit it at https://catalog.folger.edu/. The new catalog! Huzzah! TIND ILS (Get comfy; this is a long…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: June 2022
Welcome to our June Crocodile Mystery! (Confused as to why it’s a “crocodile” mystery? Learn how it got that name.) Special collections libraries are full of strange and mysterious acronyms, abbreviations, and codes. For this month’s mystery, tell us, if…
Reading Shakespeare in English in Eighteenth-Century Spain
a guest post by John Stone Deanne Williams, who was a Folger fellow in 2003, tells the story of how her work on early modern girlhood took shape just after her daughter was born—she began thinking about histories of gender,…
The Harmsworth Collection
Book collecting is a passion, or as Nicholas Basbanes famously called it, “a gentle madness,” that affects no few people. Henry and Emily Folger were two such bibliophiles, amassing the largest private collection of Shakespeareana in the world. This collection…
Postcards in the (home) archive: 1941
a guest post by Stephen Grant Fig. 1. Folger Shakespeare Library from Northwest 1941Author’s Collection, photo by Stephen Grant Printed on picture side: W7. THE FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D.C. H. H. Rideout. Printed on address side: The Folger Shakespeare…
Not for the faint of heart
Thanks to everyone who registered a guess for this month’s Crocodile Mystery and congratulations to those of you who answered correctly! As many of you pointed out, the oddity in the final disposition of characters is Macbeth’s full-bodied presence on…
Invitation to preview our new catalog
Psssst…. we’re working on a new online catalog for the Folger collection. Do you want to help out by having an early look? If so, please keep reading! The link is deliberately buried deep in this blog post because there’s…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: May 2022
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Crocodile Mystery for May. This month, take a moment to examine this image from a 19th century printed text of Macbeth published as a promptbook for performance. What is odd about the disposition…
Reading the Past and Researching During COVID-19
a guest post by Daniel Davies I defended my Ph.D. dissertation on April 3, 2020. The defense happened on Zoom, which has become standard academic operating procedure by now but at the time felt like an extreme oddity. ‘Zoom is…
Postcards in the (home) archive 1940
a guest post by Stephen Grant Fig. 1. Folger Shakespeare Library from Northwest 1940Author’s Collection, photo by Stephen Grant Printed on picture side: FOLGER SHAKESPEARIAN LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C. Printed on address side: THE UNION NEWS COMPANY FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY.…