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Manuscripts

Manuscripts in the Folger collections
Manuscript reunions
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Manuscript reunions

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Author
Heather Wolfe

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…

Marginalizing heralds and antiquaries
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Marginalizing heralds and antiquaries

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Author
Heather Wolfe

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of major transition for English heralds, as the number of arms being granted increased exponentially, requiring improved methods of record-keeping. Their job was both ceremonial (ordering and keeping score at tournaments, ordering…

Watermarks & hidden collections
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Watermarks & hidden collections

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Nadia Seiler

Hidden collections—that is, collections that are undescribed or underdescribed—are exceedingly common in libraries and archives. Until recently, the manuscript and printed paper that make up the E. Williams watermark collection, including papers of the Hale family of King’s Walden and…

Interrogating a hermit
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Interrogating a hermit

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Author
Heather Wolfe

Three months ago the Folger was lucky enough to acquire a letter from Thomas Cromwell to George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury. I say lucky because while roughly 350 letters from Cromwell survive, almost all of them are at either the…

From printing house to coffee house
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From printing house to coffee house

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Author
Heather Wolfe

Last Friday a much-anticipated package arrived at the Folger, containing a series of fifteen deeds describing the successive ownership of two adjacent properties on Fleet Street (“The King’s Highway”) in London from 1543 to 1735. Deeds can be tedious to…

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