books | The Collation

24 May 2013
by Goran Proot
1 Comment

Ten copies of the “bad” 1640 Sonnets in good and bad shape

The Folger Shakespeare Library has ten copies of the second edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets (STC 22344).

21 May 2013
by Sarah Werner
0 comments

Looking like a book

Last month I wrote about a book—nay, a leaf of a book—and the secret histories it reveals about how it was made, from the growth of the tree that became the woodblock to the valleys and hills that formed during … Continue reading →

13 May 2013
by Heather Wolfe
4 Comments

Learning to write the alphabet

Learning to write the alphabet is one of the first stages of writing literacy. For early modern English children, this meant first learning to read the letters of the alphabet (printed in black letter) from a hornbook. They then learned to … Continue reading →

6 May 2013
by Sarah Werner
3 Comments

Pen facsimiles of early print

As the commenters on last week’s crocodile guessed, the mystery image showed writing masquerading as print or, to use the more formal term, a pen facsimile (click on any of the images in the post to enlarge them): It’s telling … Continue reading →

30 April 2013
by Erin Blake
8 Comments

Two disciplines separated by a common language

I should have seen it coming when the Art History professor and the English professor started talking with each other about “print culture” (names omitted to protect reputations). It soon became clear that one had been talking about the circulation … Continue reading →

25 April 2013
by Goran Proot
0 comments

Mors comoedia. A comedy a hundred years old brought to life again in 1726

Sheer chance is an important factor in research. Some sixteen years ago I was surveying a sammelband held at Antwerp University Library that contained 257 programs documenting theater performances in Jesuit schools in Flanders.1 And now, just a month ago, … Continue reading →

22 April 2013
by Sarah Werner
8 Comments

First Folios online

I imagine that you’re all thinking the same thing I’m thinking in the lead-up to April 23rd, Shakespeare’s birthday/deathday: Where can I find a good online facsimile of the First Folio? And I’m here to tell you the answer: In … Continue reading →

19 April 2013
by Guest Author
5 Comments

Interleaving history: an illustrated Book of Common Prayer

A guest post by Whitney Anne Trettien In Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones, Partridge and his friends go to see a play. As they watch a man light the upper candles of the playhouse, the predictably inane Partridge cries out, … Continue reading →

12 April 2013
by Sarah Werner
2 Comments

Secret histories of books

This month’s crocodile mystery was a bit more challenging than recent ones (perhaps not helped by my cryptic “suitable for April” introduction), but Aaron Pratt guessed the gist of it: the image was a detail of a page printed in … Continue reading →

19 March 2013
by Goran Proot
2 Comments

Opening Ornamental Initials

During the last couple of months at the Folger, we have come across a number of exceptional ornamental initials in Flemish imprints, as we are processing these systematically together with two interns.1 These initials can be fascinating to study. For example, look … Continue reading →