Skip to main content
All 477 posts on

Folger Collections

Experiments with early modern manuscripts and computer-aided transcription
Collation

Experiments with early modern manuscripts and computer-aided transcription

Posted
Author
Meaghan J. Brown Minyue Dai, Carrie Yang, and Reeve Ingle

Guest post by Minyue Dai, Carrie Yang, Reeve Ingle, and Meaghan J. Brown. Hundreds of years ago, scholars might spend hours in a library searching through thousands of pages to find a useful paragraph.Things get much easier when we can…

Happy 500th Birthday!
Collation

Happy 500th Birthday!

Posted
Author
Abbie Weinberg

On a recent tour, I was showing a book published in 1518, and mentioned that clearly we were celebrating its 500th birthday by showing it off to a group of very appreciative folks. But that got me thinking—what other books…

About that frontispiece portrait of Hannah Woolley....
Collation

About that frontispiece portrait of Hannah Woolley....

Posted
Author
Heather Wolfe

I was delighted by the range of responses we got for last week’s Crocodile post on the identity of the woman in the engraving: Catherine of Braganza, Cleopatra, Lady Frances Egerton, Elizabeth Nash nee Hall (Shakespeare’s grand-daughter), Hannah Woolley, and…

A "lost" drawing by Ellen Terry
Collation

A "lost" drawing by Ellen Terry

Posted
Author
Erin Blake

Is it possible to lose something you never had? The other day I managed to “lose” a 1905 sketch of a theater interior by actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928). I had caught a glimpse of it when sorting through a small…

The Drury Lane printshop
Collation

The Drury Lane printshop

Posted
Author
Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Jeffrey Meade’s guess is correct: this type inventory includes a great variety of large sized type. It belongs to a longer document made in June 1819 recording the furniture of the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane when the theater was…

Under Cover: Forged Bindings on Display at the Folger
Collation

Under Cover: Forged Bindings on Display at the Folger

Posted
Author
Elizabeth DeBold

Our latest exhibition, Form and Function: the Genius of the Book, provides visitors with a true visual feast. Offering a wide array of different types of bindings from the Folger collections, exhibition attendees will learn about the techniques and materials historically…

Dancing Skeletons and Human Hair: Remembrance, Memento Mori, and Material Culture
Collation

Dancing Skeletons and Human Hair: Remembrance, Memento Mori, and Material Culture

Posted
Author
Catherine Elliott Tisdale

A guest post by Catherine Elliott Tisdale How do you remember loved ones who have passed away or family members who have scattered across the four winds? Today if we lose someone, we turn to photos, family films, emails, texts,…

Written in the Margent: Frances Wolfreston Revealed
Collation

Written in the Margent: Frances Wolfreston Revealed

Posted
Author
Sarah Lindenbaum

A guest post by Sarah Lindenbaum “And what obscured in this fair volume lies / Find written in the margent of his eyes” (Romeo and Juliet, 1.3.87–88) Recently, two Shakespeare quartos held by the Folger Shakespeare Library were determined to…

A Pamphlet War in England, 1641-1643
Collation

A Pamphlet War in England, 1641-1643

Posted
Author
Brittney Washington

A guest post by Brittney Washington Since my time as the 2017-2018 Nadia Sophie Seiler Rare Materials Resident is quickly approaching an end, I’ve been taking some time to look back on what I’ve learned about the amazing collection here at…

Engraved to Sell
Collation

Engraved to Sell

Posted
Author
Caroline Duroselle-Melish

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…

Explore promptbooks from the 1950s festival Shakespeare Under the Stars
King Henry VIII prompt book
Shakespeare and Beyond

Explore promptbooks from the 1950s festival Shakespeare Under the Stars

Posted
Author
Esther French

The Folger collection contains a number of prompt books from Shakespeare Under the Stars productions, which were gifts from Arthur Lithgow.

On looking into Chapman's Homer once again
Collation

On looking into Chapman's Homer once again

Posted
Author
Jessica Wolfe

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…

1 18 19 20 21 22 50