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Books

Books in the Folger collections
Expurgation with decoration: type ornaments as replacement text
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Expurgation with decoration: type ornaments as replacement text

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Author
Erin Blake

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…

Marks on Bindings
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Marks on Bindings

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Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Thank you for your witty guesses to this month’s Crocodile, they are great! I also need to make a disclaimer: I am far from having collected enough evidence to answer this mystery, so like you, I only have guesses to…

Balancing information and expertise: vernacular guidance on bloodletting in early modern calendars and almanacs
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Balancing information and expertise: vernacular guidance on bloodletting in early modern calendars and almanacs

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Author
Mary Yearl

A guest post by Mary Yearl The first calendar printed as a book in Europe was also the first to contain a printed image of a bloodletting man.1 This point alone is indicative of the importance bloodletting played in medieval…

Idols of the Reformation
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Idols of the Reformation

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Author
Rachel B. Dankert

Thank you to all who weighed in on this month’s Crocodile Mystery! Many people recognize October 31, 1517 as a major milestone in the beginning of the Protestant Reformation—the date that it is said Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses…

A guided tour of an incunabulum from 1478
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A guided tour of an incunabulum from 1478

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Author
Sujata Iyengar

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
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Thoroughly Modern Helena

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Author
Abbie Weinberg

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…

The “Quartermaster’s Map” of England and Wales
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The “Quartermaster’s Map” of England and Wales

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Author
Erin Blake

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…

Getting Dressed with the Hermaphrodites
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Getting Dressed with the Hermaphrodites

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Kathleen Long

A guest post by Kathleen Long (Editor’s Note: You can read Kathleen’s previous post, Dining with the Hermaphrodites, for a discussion of another aspect the novel.) The inhabitants of the island depicted in the 1605 French novel, The Island of…

Early women buying books: the evidence
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Early women buying books: the evidence

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Author
Georgianna Ziegler

In 1684, Bridget Trench bought herself a copy of the Rev. Samuel Clarke’s General Martyrologie, a collection of biographies of those who had been persecuted for their beliefs in the history of the church in England. Samuel Clarke, General Martyrologie…

"To Madame Sarah"
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"To Madame Sarah"

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Elizabeth DeBold

Sarah Bernhardt is, for many, synonymous with the melodramatic. One of the most well-known and celebrated actresses of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, she was described by contemporaries as “indefatigable;” “an actress without a rival;” and “a queen of art.”The…

Following the Trail of Counterfeits in the Folger’s Reformation Collection
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Following the Trail of Counterfeits in the Folger’s Reformation Collection

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Author
Drew Thomas

A guest post by Drew Thomas Among the many collections at the Folger, besides its magnificent Shakespeare Collection, is the Stickelberger Collection of Reformation Tracts. This valuable collection, purchased by the Folger in 1977, was compiled by the Swiss writer…

A red proof sheet used as printer's waste
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A red proof sheet used as printer's waste

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Author
Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Thank you for your guesses on this month’s crocodile mystery. The leaf pictured here shows text from the Litany printed in red. The blank space is where the text in black would have been printed in a second press run.…

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