Engraved to Sell
Printed ephemera can be exciting, especially when it reveals information that can be found nowhere else. When it is also a very rare piece with only a couple of extant copies recorded, and its design is intriguing, the discovery is…
On looking into Chapman's Homer once again
A guest post by Jessica Wolfe If the name George Chapman rings a bell, it is likely because you once read John Keats’s 1816 sonnet, “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer,” which describes the Romantic poet’s experience of reading Chapman’s…
Early modern head lice remedies; or, dealing with pediculosis, Renaissance-style
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,…
Hinman, Redux
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…
Sonnets by Shakespeare...'s spirit?
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…
Cracks in Etched Plates
Originally, I was going to do a crocodile post about the binding of this architecture book by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau: Title page of Folger NA2625 .A63 1615 Cage Photo by Caroline Duroselle-Melish But after I thought about it, it…
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.…
Dryden's Virgil, Ogilby's Virgil, and Aeneas's nose job
First, a confession: this month’s Crocodile Mystery was originally going to pose a question along the lines of “What’s weird about this image?” or “What makes this picture especially interesting?” but I gave up. I couldn’t figure out how to…
Black Monday: the Great Solar Eclipse of 1652
In all the excitement of yesterday’s solar eclipse, you may have learned that eclipses are common: most calendar years have four eclipses (two solar and two lunar), with a maximum of seven eclipses (though this is rare).According to Time &…
Shakespearian novelties- er, novelettes
I was pretty intrigued when I pulled this case marked “Shakespearian novelties” from the shelf in the Vault… Spine of the case housing four “Shakespearian novelettes” … then I realized that it actually said “Shakespearian novelettes,” and my excitement dimmed…
A Photographic Facsimile from 1857
The July Crocodile Mystery showed a “detail from a printed play” and asked what’s up with the strangely uneven tone of the page. What’s up is that although the text is printed, it is not printed in ink. It is a…
Happy Birthday, Elias Ashmole!
Today is the 400th anniversary of the birth of Elias Ashmole. Perhaps best known today for giving his name (and the founding collection of antiquities and “curiosities”) to the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, this 17th-century antiquarian had…