The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

What is Lost is Found Again: the Lost Plays Database

July 3, 2018 | By Meaghan J. Brown

We had one answer right on the money for this July’s Crocodile Mystery—each of the images featured evidence of lost plays. The first image is a scrap from the Henslowe papers, recording a payment for John Day for the third part of The Blind Beggar. The second image shows a payment for the performance of Sir John Oldcastle (probably not the one spuriously attributed to Shakespeare, but a later play) before the King and Queen on March 12, 1630/1.… Continue Reading

Written in the Margent: Frances Wolfreston Revealed

June 21, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Sarah Lindenbaum “And what obscured in this fair volume lies / Find written in the margent of his eyes” (Romeo and Juliet, 1.3.87–88) Recently, two Shakespeare quartos held by the Folger Shakespeare Library were determined to likely be from the library of early modern reader Frances Wolfreston. The books themselves—copy 4 of the fifth quarto of Romeo and Juliet (1637) and a 1636 edition of Venus and Adonis—have been digitized through LUNA and are meticulously cataloged.… Continue Reading

A Pamphlet War in England, 1641-1643

June 19, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Brittney Washington Since my time as the 2017-2018 Nadia Sophie Seiler Rare Materials Resident is quickly approaching an end, I’ve been taking some time to look back on what I’ve learned about the amazing collection here at the Folger Shakespeare Library. My work focused specifically on cataloging printed materials found in the Wing bibliography (known formally as Short title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English books printed in other countries, 1641-1700).… Continue Reading

Engraved to Sell

June 14, 2018 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Printed ephemera can be exciting, especially when it reveals information that can be found nowhere else. When it is also a very rare piece with only a couple of extant copies recorded, and its design is intriguing, the discovery is even more interesting. I was thus thrilled when, following a tip from a colleague, I found in the Folger stacks this small seventeenth-century engraved print containing information on where in London one could subscribe to John Ogilby’s English Atlas.… Continue Reading

On looking into Chapman’s Homer once again

June 12, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Jessica Wolfe If the name George Chapman rings a bell, it is likely because you once read John Keats’s 1816 sonnet, “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer,” which describes the Romantic poet’s experience of reading Chapman’s translation of Homer for the first time. I have spent the past eight months conducting research for the first full-length biography of Chapman (ca.… Continue Reading