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
Announcing a New Folger-NACBS Short-Term Fellowship
The Folger Institute and the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) are delighted to announce a new fellowship for scholars of the British world who are working on topics from the early modern period through to the present day.…
The Shakespeare stamps
As several philatelically-astute readers quickly identified, the portrait of Shakespeare shown in last week’s Crocodile mystery is from a stamp! These one shilling stamps were issued annually for a number of years at the turn of the 20th…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: February 2018
This month’s crocodile mystery is an example of one of our favorite things: Shakespeare portraits! What kind of item is this portrait of Shakespeare from, and what is significant about the item?
Books of Offices
A guest post by Nicholas Popper The Folger has fourteen of an odd, unloved sort of manuscript that I’ve taken to calling “Books of Offices,” which exist in over a hundred versions throughout archives in the US and UK. Typically…
Book Reviews from the Royal Society
Book reviews are a staple of many academic journals. They are a way to learn about new books in the field and to see what your fellow scholars think of them. And they’ve been around for a really long time.…
Bound to Serve: Apprenticeship Indentures at the Folger
A guest post by Dr. Urvashi Chakravarty In 1616, the apprentice Robert Dering received the following letter from his master Thomas Style. Letter from Thomas Style to Robert Dering Dering was bound overseas with one Mr. Culpepper, and in his…
The Case Files
The problem with using IDs in mysteries is we also attempt to make them easy to discover. Elisabeth Chaghafi got it in one: this number belongs to X.d.131 and marks this item as one of Henry and Emily Folger’s original…
"What manner o'thing is your crocodile?": January 2018
Happy Boxing Day! We’ve brought you another crocodile mystery to open with your holiday goodies. This month’s mystery comes in two forms and appears in two places. Tell us, if you would, what these mysterious numbers suggest to you? …
Twentieth-century illustration technique revealed in a "snow Globe"
While looking through the Folger collection for snow scenes (it’s that time of year!) I stumbled across this image of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, drawn in the 1960s by C. Walter Hodges: C. Walter Hodges (1909-2004). The Second Globe Under Snow.…
Folger Collections related to Dramatic Performance
In hopes that we can help theater historians discover more about relevant Folger holdings through their own explorations, we have created this post on “named” collections at the Folger that relate to actors, dramatic performance, and the texts used by…
A Sophisticated Leaf
Henry V fragment. Photo by Elizabeth DeBold. There were several good guesses about this month’s Crocodile Mystery—a crease in the paper, or an off-center, pre-stamped envelope. But, Elisabeth Chaghafi was right on the money with her guess: this is a…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: December 2017
For December’s Crocodile Mystery, tell us, if you will, what’s happening in the images below. Leave your guess in the comments and we’ll be back next week with the answer!