The Collation

This month’s Crocodile Mystery illustrates a scene from Shakespeare, but seems more suited to Sir John Suckling: “Why so pale and wan fond lover?” Share your thoughts on why it looks the way it does by leaving a reply in…

A guest post by Nigel Smith I believe I am writing a book about the early modern city as a site of literary activity: the constant factor during the notable and extreme transformations and disruptions that took place between c.…

This week, we at the Folger welcome members of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) community to Washington for an annual conference together with our fellow hosts, the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress. The IIIF community is a profoundly…

With assistance by Beth DeBold This post is dedicated to all those parents and caregivers who have gotten the dreaded phone call while at work: “your child has lice.” You have to drop everything and retrieve your child from school,…

A Guest Post by Andrew R. Walkling Over this past winter and spring I have been dodging periodic snowstorms across the Mid-Atlantic region, journeying back and forth to Washington for a project that draws upon one meaning of the word…

The guesses on this month’s Crocodile Mystery definitely pointed in the right direction: the mystery image this month is indeed the monogram signature of an artist. But rather than PH, it is PA: Percy Anderson. Anderson (1851-1928) was a well-respected…

For this month’s mystery, take a look at the image below and tell us, if you will, what this glyph is and what it’s doing on our collection? Leave your guesses in the comments and we’ll be back next week…

The Folger Institute is pleased to announce our 2018-2019 cohort of Long-term Fellows. This year we will welcome seven long-term scholars to the Folger: Patricia Akhimie, Liza Blake, Heidi Craig, Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto, Douglas M. Lanier, Simon Newman, and Isaac…

Folger X.d.446, the notebook of John Kay, combines accounts and verses. Short-term fellow Laura Kolb argues that Kay’s book is noteworthy not because it combines these things, but because it does so with both care and a kind of inventiveness,…

As the common saying goes, only death and taxes are certain. However, consider the uncertainties that can accompany any tax season: missing W-2s, e-file services incompatible with your browser, shifting standards, mathematical errors… That’s enough about taxes! Let’s talk about…

This post was written with the invaluable contribution of Sophie Byvik. Ever been puzzled by a date in one of our manuscripts? Want to know how much a manipulus is in your early modern recipe? How much did that early…

This month’s crocodile mystery asked what’s going on with the odd-looking painting technique in an original work of art, shown in a detail. Here’s a view of the whole thing: Charles Sheldon, “Ellen Terry as Hermione in ‘The Winter’s Tale’…