The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

New STC call numbers for old

March 22, 2016 | By Erin Blake

The Great Reclassification has begun! As some of you may know, all newly-acquired vault material at the Folger is shelved in the order it was accessioned except for publications that fall within the scope of  A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640 compiled by A.W. Pollard & G.R. Redgrave, better known at the Folger as “STC” (also well-known as “Pollard and Redgrave”).… Continue Reading

Where is that book? Tracing copies imaged for EEBO

March 17, 2016 | By Meaghan J. Brown

How do you find a book? There are times when not just any copy will do, when you need to locate one exact copy of a book with a certain history. While gathering information for the Folger’s Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama, one of my tasks has been to locate—in physical space—the books that are the basis for our electronic editions.… Continue Reading

A monument more lasting than bronze

March 8, 2016 | By Sarah Powell

exegi monumentum aere perennius regalique situ pyramidum altius, quod non imber edax, non Aquilo inpotens possit diruere… (Odes III: XXX, lines 1-4, published 23BC)  I have built a monument more lasting than bronze, higher than the Pyramids’ regal structures, that no consuming rain, nor wild north wind can destroy… So wrote Horace in his Odes III, predicting the far reaching influence of his (and his contemporaries’) work on the coming centuries.… Continue Reading

Fallen Type

March 1, 2016 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Those of you who replied to the Crocodile post last week guessed right: what you see in this image is a piece of fallen type that was printed by accident over a page of text being printed. The height of the type is approximately 24 millimeters, which is the standard height of type (the zooming on the type makes it appear larger than it really is).… Continue Reading

Textual variants in Shakespeare’s love letter to Anne Hathaway

February 23, 2016 | By Heather Wolfe

When Shakespeare was young and in love, he wrote a gushing letter to his bride-to-be, enclosing with it a lock of his hair and five verses. Or that’s what an audacious teenager in the 1790s would have us all believe. The supposed love letter is the handiwork of forger William Henry Ireland. For those of you new to him, see Arthur Freeman’s account of his identification of the original Ireland forgeries at Harvard, and the Collation post on William Henry Ireland’s forged Shakespeare library by Arnold Hunt and me.… Continue Reading