Folger Collections

Rachel B. Dankert, Learning and Engagement Librarian, shares items she presented on February 3, 2022 as an introduction to ‘The Weight of Ink’ by Rachel Kadish.

In 1595, English writer William Fiston (or Phiston) produced a translation of a French book of manners for children. Topics included proper behavior that was important for Church and school, but also a section on table manners. Here, Fiston admonishes…

Today’s Collation post is short and sweet, and courtesy of Heather Wolfe, the Folger’s Curator of Manuscripts. Heather is currently on sabbatical in the UK, having been awarded the 2021–22 Munby Fellowship at Cambridge University Library, but she still occasionally…

Thanks to those who registered your guesses on our most recent Crocodile Mystery. All of the guesses gazed upward, when the answer actually lay underfoot. While these strange designs resemble theatrical lighting effects, they are, in fact, designs for stage…

a guest post by Yann Ryan As well as its terrible consequences for health and mortality, plague in early modern England had a major impact on the communication and circulation of information. Movement was restricted, towns with suspected cases were…

Elizabeth DeBold, Assistant Curator of Collections, shares items she presented on December 6, 2021 as an introduction to ‘All’s Well’ by Mona Awad.

Response of James Tabor, public notary, July 10, 1604, in Henry Cotton vs. William Windle. Cambridge University Archives, Comm.Ct.II.11, fol. 57v. Today’s post is about a woman, Margaret Cotton, who allegedly stole a book in 1602. The book might have…

a guest post by Jennie Youssef When the term of my Folger fellowship began, I had made some headway in my research for a dissertation chapter on the foodway of strawberries. The strawberry’s symbolic significance in medieval art and early…

a guest post by Ray Schrire It is time for an unofficial Crocodile Mystery. Humphrey Walcot’s grocery bill. Folger, L.f.196 These are a few of my favorite items from the merchant Humphrey Walcot’s shopping list of May 8, 1601 (a…

The Folger collection includes approximately 250,000 playbills, the single-sheet precursors of today’s multi-page theater programs.Many theater programs in the United States have a striking yellow banner with PLAYBILL in black letters on the front cover. These aren’t playbills, they’re free…

Marking the anniversary of actor Edwin Booth’s birth on November 13, 1833, we explore a stunning historical costume from the Folger collection: an embroidered-velvet tunic that Booth wore onstage as King Richard III.

Rachel B. Dankert, Learning and Engagement Librarian, shares items she presented on November 4, 2021 as an introduction to ‘The Porpoise’ by Mark Haddon.