Folger Collections

As I’ve written about before, in my Undergraduate Seminars students devote the bulk of their research time to crafting a biography of the book they’ve chosen as their primary focus. They find out who wrote the book and who printed…

With this post we inaugurate a series by people working at the Folger as Interns. Classroom work and professional training never quite capture the true nature of the j – o – b. Therefore, for those pursuing advanced degrees in…

Hello, Gaming Table friends! Emily Trask here again. We’re deep into the heart of rehearsals here at the Folger and will be starting technical rehearsals very soon. The set is incredible, the costumes unbelievable, and everyone is rightfully excited to…

Back in August, I posted about a unique artists’ book  from 1995. Today, I’d like to showcase an example from the other end of the twentieth century, an artists’ book created in 1908 by American painter Pinckney Marcius-Simons (1867–1909). In…

Recently, a handful of brave cast members, as well as the director, stage manager, and dialect coach of The Gaming Table all bellied up to that titular table to learn how to play Basset. Why Basset, you ask? And why did…

We are halfway through our first week of rehearsals for The Gaming Table, and it’s already too much fun not to share. So without further ado… Welcome to the Folger Theatre Production Diary for Susanna Centlivre’s The Gaming Table (originally titled The Basset Table), brought…

Did you think that “reduce, reuse, recycle” was just a modern slogan? Check out this early modern book: That’s an image of the front inside cover and front endleaf of a 1636 edition of Charles Fitz-Geffrey’s The blessed birth-day, which…

A guest post by Folger Institute participant and short-term fellow Lehua Yim Sixteenth-century England was particularly formative in the long history of what “Britain” means for the peoples of that archipelago, as reformulations of political, legal, economic, and religious institutions…

Sometimes we come across a manuscript on the market that looks vaguely familiar, and sends us scrambling to Hamnet to figure out why. I was reminded of this last week when a bookseller offered us a “naval return for Queen…

For teachers, this is the season of grading; for students, this is the season of exam-taking and paper-writing. For some of you, both students and teachers, you get slammed on both sides (no matter how much you enjoy writing or…

Hello again from your blogfriend Louis Butelli, lately of Folger Theatre’s Othello. I am very, very pleased to report the following couple of things! 1. We had an incredible closing night this past Sunday. We were sold to the rafters…

Every November, the International Fine Print Dealers’ Association (IFPDA) holds a fair at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. Colloquially known as the New York Print Fair, almost 100 dealers from the US, Canada, and Europe bring a selection from…