The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

William Shakespeare, Poet and Gentleman

January 18, 2017 | By Heather Wolfe and Michael Witmore

The Guardian newspaper recently published an article about new manuscript discoveries concerning the life of William Shakespeare. These discoveries, made by Heather Wolfe, are described as a decisive blow to the belief that Shakespeare was a front man for someone else—a smoking gun that disproves the claims for other candidates such as Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Queen Elizabeth.… Continue Reading

Folger copy 54: From family library to research library

January 17, 2017 | By Kathleen Lynch

Folger First Folio number 54 traveled over 10,000 miles from Washington D.C., to San Diego California and Honolulu, Hawaii, during our First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare tour, and is on view in our Great Hall through January 22, 2017. But its journey was already in progress long before this traveling exhibit. It had been moved from the Hutchinson family library, at the estate in Owthorpe, in Nottinghamshire, England, where it was since at least the late seventeenth century, to a “very large, apparently foreign made, Chest” by the time Captain Charles Hutchinson inherited it in the nineteenth century, after the estate had been sold out of the family.… Continue Reading

Announcing a New Folger Fellowship in Honor of Margaret Hannay

January 10, 2017 | By Amanda Herbert and Georgianna Ziegler

We’re proud to announce the creation of a new fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library. In partnership with the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, the Folger Institute will offer a fellowship to scholars working on studies of women, genders, and/or sexualities in the early modern world, who can demonstrate a clear need to utilize the Folger’s collections. This $2500 award will allow a scholar to spend one month in residence at the Folger.… Continue Reading

Princely New Year’s Gift? A Newly-Discovered Manuscript

January 5, 2017 | By Georgianna Ziegler

What better way to greet the New Year than with a ceremony of gift giving among friends and acquaintances? It was certainly a popular way to celebrate at the courts of Elizabeth I and her successor, James I. Gifts came from courtiers and household members of all degrees, beginning with earls and their ladies down to the queen’s apothecary and musicians, as well as poets and others from outside the court seeking favor.… Continue Reading

Looking through the hole in a torn-open letter

January 3, 2017 | By Erin Blake

Well, I thought the January 2017 Crocodile Mystery was going to be a tricky one, but Misha Teramura not only identified the phenomenon correctly (an endorsement written across the hole created when an early modern letter was torn open at the wax seal), he pinpointed the letter in question: Folger MS L.a.874, a letter from Edward Stafford, 12th Baron Stafford, Stafford Castle, to Walter Bagot and Walter Chetwynd, 6 May 1599. … Continue Reading