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The Collation

Folger files; or, a fetch-quest come to life

“MS. corrections to the text, by the author (Folger files).” Such an innocuous note in the Folger copy note field of the record for our second copy of Philip Massinger’s The Bond-man (STC 17632). Meaghan Brown, the Folger’s CLIR Fellow, came across it while doing a survey of our collection of early modern drama. There are hundreds of notes like it in Hamnet. In most cases, the “Folger files” referred to are either the Case Files or Curatorial Files.

The Case Files are the records from the purchases the Folgers themselves made: as items were acquired, they were given a case number, and associated documentation—such as the bookseller’s catalog, correspondence, newspaper articles about the sale, even labels from packing slips—was carefully saved. They are an amazing source for provenance research and simply knowing more about a particular item. The Curatorial Files are similar, collecting documentation on noteworthy items in the collection.

However, in this case, that note sent me on a two day treasure hunt through Folger institutional archives to try to sort out what, exactly, was going on.

It started out as a simple enough request: Meaghan asked if I could find the file on this item, so that she could verify exactly why the manuscript annotations are being attributed to Massinger himself.

The Hamnet record gave me my starting point—well, what should have been my starting point: 

Comments

Well done Abbie. Your search inspires me on the other side of the Pacific in Canberra, Australia. Thank you for sharing your inspirational search into the bowels of the Folger. Please give us others when they come to hand.

Jeremy Spencer — April 10, 2015

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OMG! OMG! I just discovered where the mysterious “5293” in the record for Massinger’s The Bond Man came from and why it was changed on the card! It really IS the accession number (handwritten in a ledger I just found). The person making the card accidentally wrote the accession number the spot for the order number. In retrospect, the accession number for the W.W. Greg pamphlet—5301—was a clue: the eight plays are entered in the accessions ledger as numbers 5293 through 5300. Now to update the Folgerpedia article on accession numbers…..

Erin Blake — March 3, 2017

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Awesome!!

Abbie Weinberg — March 4, 2017

Reply

Folgerpedia article “Accession numbers” now updated with an explanation of the four-digit series, and a photo of a page from the ledger.

Erin Blake — March 4, 2017

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