Folger Collections
The Folger as a Collection of Collections
The next time a scholar of early modern Europe tells you that they don’t look to the Folger as their research home because they don’t work on Shakespeare, you might gently suggest that there are other parts of the Folger’s…
A Yellow Book
Thank you to those who have tried to solve this month’s Crocodile mystery regarding the yellow color of a book, which can be found in the Stickelberger collection of Reformation at the Folger Shakespeare Library (more on this collection in…
Costumes in 'As You Like It'
Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, That I did suit me all points like a man? Much of the love-lorn humor in As You Like It comes from Rosalind’s male disguise, but she’s not…
A New ASECS-Folger Short Term Fellowship
The Folger Institute is delighted to announce a fellowship in partnership with the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. This $2,500 award will allow its recipient a one-month residency at the Folger Library in Washington, DC. The fellowship is interdisciplinary, and…
Manuscripts in libraries: catalog versus finding aid
When searching for manuscripts at the Folger—or pretty much any special collections library—it helps to know that manuscripts often lead a double life. Many exist simultaneously as part of a library, and as part of an archive, and libraries and archives have different…
Announcing a New Fellowship with the Omohundro Institute
The Folger is known for our Shakespeare collections, but our holdings support research on all aspects of British and European literary, cultural, political, religious, theatrical, and social history from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries: and that includes materials that…
A promptbook in disguise
It’s time to pull back the curtain on last week’s crocodile mystery: that weird woven material is a close-up photograph of the cover of a promptbook! Both commenters who took a guess last week came pretty close. This particular promptbook was…
Announcing EMMO's Beta Launch
To kick off the new year at Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), the EMMO team (Paul Dingman, Mike Poston, Sarah Powell, Caitlin Rizzo & Heather Wolfe, with additional thanks to Rebecca Niles) is thrilled to announce the launch of our…
Play scripts as you like them
Promptbooks help stage managers and actors keep their, er, act straight. Explore these ‘As You Like It’ promptbooks from the Folger collection.
William Shakespeare, Poet and Gentleman
The Guardian newspaper recently published an article about new manuscript discoveries concerning the life of William Shakespeare. These discoveries, made by Heather Wolfe, are described as a decisive blow to the belief that Shakespeare was a front man for someone…
Folger copy 54: From family library to research library
Folger First Folio number 54 traveled over 10,000 miles from Washington D.C., to San Diego California and Honolulu, Hawaii, during our First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare tour, and is on view in our Great Hall through January…
Announcing a New Folger Fellowship in Honor of Margaret Hannay
We’re proud to announce the creation of a new fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library. In partnership with the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, the Folger Institute will offer a fellowship to scholars working on studies of…