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
Introducing the Folger Reference Image Collection
Sometimes when people contact the Folger to ask questions about items in our collections, the easiest way to provide an answer is to take a quick photo of a particular detail. This has resulted in a growing collection of smartphone…
An Unfinished Title Page Border?
Many thanks for your answers to last week’s post. They convey the puzzling nature of this title page border: Is it an unfinished work? Was it intended to be completed by readers of the book? Does it look different in…
“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: October 2020
Welcome to another Crocodile Mystery! This month we ask you to look at the image below and tell us what you think might be going on? What sort of questions does this image generate? As always, leave your thoughts in…
Who was a refugee in early modern England? The “Poor Palatines” of 1709
A guest post by Jeremy Fradkin Today’s Collation post is a little bit different. It showcases materials held in archival collections at the British Library and the National Archives, both in the United Kingdom. It is the product of an…
Re-discovering three-cornered notes
A couple of years ago, when I had Saturday Duty in the Reading Room, a group of early-19th-century letters came across the desk. I noticed right away that one of them had unusual diagonal fold lines: Folger Y.d.23 (82x), a…
Postcards of the Folger: Midsommer, Romeo and Ivliet, Merchant of Venice
A guest post by Stephen Grant It is my pleasure to show you two early sets of picture postcards of the Folger’s bas-reliefs by John Gregory. On the left you have photographic cards printed on Kodak (AZO) Paper. I’m hoping…
A guided tour of an incunabulum from 1478
A guest post by Sujata Iyengar Typography—the design of individual printed letter-shapes—makes printed books easier to read, and it can also shape our understanding and experience of the text and the content that an individual book contains. At first, early…
Thoroughly Modern Helena
What do Robert Browning, Anna Maria Hall, Geraldine Jewsbury, John Ruskin, and Anna Swanwick, have in common? Quite a bit, actually. But in the Folger’s collection, they were the five “recipients” of Helena Faucit’s essays that formed the volume On…
Birdbrained
Thanks to everyone who took a guess on this month’s Crocodile Mystery! As several of you pointed out, the teaser image is of some breed of cockatoo or cockatiel. Although I usually know a hawk from a handsaw, I will…
“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: September 2020
Welcome back for another Crocodile post! As you face the new challenges Fall brings to us, take a few moments to breathe out, and take a look at this month’s mystery. What’s going on in this image? Where is it…
Introduction to a Slightly Modified Theme: Postcards in the (home) archive
A guest post by Stephen Grant The thematic series I started Aug. 12, 2019, “Postcards in the Folger Archives,” has come to a pause. It has not escaped my dear collational readers’ attention that in my most recent post I…
The “Quartermaster’s Map” of England and Wales
Thanks for the excellent guesses on the identity of the August Crocodile Mystery! If you’ll permit me to indulge myself, I’ll prolong the suspense a little longer by showing some examples of what it might have been, but isn’t (and…