The Collation
Research and Exploration at the Folger
The Collation is a gathering of useful information and observations from Folger staff and researchers. Read more about this blog
The Collation by the numbers
Happy Anniversary to us! This blog was started on August 18, 2011, making it ten years old. That’s pretty old in dog years and absolutely ancient in internet years. For this, our 661st post, we would like to take you…
An Experiment in Following a Worm Through a Folded Letter
A guest post by William Davis Folger staff have long been interested in folding early modern letters for mailing. It comes up periodically when someone finds a letter with unusual folds. Both Heather Wolfe and Erin Blake have written Collation…
The Pirates of H.M.S. Pinafore
The mystery man in the Crocodile Mystery image is the Englishman W.S. (William Schwenck) Gilbert, the librettist and playwright, in costume as King Claudius. Gilbert, along with composer Arthur Seymour Sullivan, created during the 19th century some of the most…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: August 2021
This month’s Crocodile post brings to mind the classic board game Guess Who? (19th century edition!). Does your person have a giant mustache? Yes. Are they wearing a crown? Yes… Do they look annoyed? YES! For those of who you might struggle with this one, here’s a clue:…
Postcards in the (home) archive: Folger postcards, 1936
A guest post by Stephen Grant Figure 1. Left: Folger Shakespeare Library from northwest 1936. Right: Address side of same card. Author’s collection, photos by Stephen Grant Printed on picture side: FOLGER SHAKESPERIAN LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 4A-H1791 Printed on…
2021-2022 Folger Research Fellows
The Folger Institute is pleased to announce the 2021-2022 cohort of Folger Institute Research Fellows! With the Folger Shakespeare Library building renovation project well and truly underway, the Folger collections remain unavailable for in-person consultation. However, the Folger Institute is…
A Conservation Intern’s Observations on STC 2608
A guest post by Kevin Cilurzo (with particular thanks to Adrienne Bell) For a conservator, to disbind and rebind a book is a rare chance to study and understand its binding structure. With broken sewing and loose detached leaves, Folger…
Reading Anatomy Texts Like Poetry (and why we should do it more often)
A guest post by Whitney Sperrazza Thomas Bartholin, Bartholinus anatomy (London, 1668), page 76. Folger B977, image from Luna. When we look at this page from Thomas Bartholin’s 1668 anatomy text (Folger B977), it’s easy to think of it as…
Decoding Early Modern Gossip
A guest post by Alicia Petersen What comes to mind when you think of a coded letter? Political intrigue? Espionage? As the Folger Shakespeare Library’s 2014-5 exhibition Decoding the Renaissance: 500 Years of Codes and Ciphers highlighted, these guesses are…
Expurgation with decoration: type ornaments as replacement text
Thanks for the great comments on last week’s Crocodile Mystery. Everyone scores ten points, with full marks going to the two commenters who correctly identified the publication.Plus a happy-face sticker on Philip’s comment for the tongue-in-cheek description of the apparent…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: July 2021
This month’s Crocodile Mystery comes from a 17th-century publication: What’s going on in this photo? Please speculate, elucidate, and/or procrastinate in the “Comments” section. Also, in case you, like I, had misremembered the source of the catchphrase we use for…
New Acquisition: Photographs of an early 20th-century production of Hamlet in Japan
Welcome to a new regular series here on The Collation! Curatorial staff will be writing short pieces focusing on new acquisitions, hopefully giving our readers a glimpse into how we’re building our collections. Today, I’m excited to share a small…