The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

Lost at Sea

October 24, 2017 | By Elizabeth DeBold

Shakespeare liked shipwrecks, including one in at least five of his plays. Sea storms and shipwrecks were a convenient way to separate characters or bring them into conflict, as well as stranding them in a strange place. In the “Age of Exploration,” sea voyages became enticingly more possible over time, in spite of the dangers. But although Shakespeare himself never sailed to new lands, his printed words have circled the globe.… Continue Reading
Max Schich presenting at the EMDA institute

Report from the field: network analysis

October 10, 2017 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Dr. Ruth Ahnert In July 2017 the Folger Institute welcomed participants and faculty to the third of its Early Modern Digital Agendas (EMDA) gatherings—an NEH-funded Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities. The EMDA institutes train early modern scholars in digital methods, digital tools, and theoretical frameworks, exposing them to the latest methods and thinking in the field, with faculty drawn from academia and beyond.… Continue Reading

Dryden’s Virgil, Ogilby’s Virgil, and Aeneas’s nose job

October 5, 2017 | By Erin Blake

First, a confession: this month’s Crocodile Mystery was originally going to pose a question along the lines of “What’s weird about this image?” or “What makes this picture especially interesting?” but I gave up. I couldn’t figure out how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t, in fact, be saying “Try to guess what crucial piece of information is being deliberately witheld!” The longer I looked at the image, the stranger it appeared, so I figured asking for captions would make an interesting Crocodile Mystery, and you came through!… Continue Reading

In memoriam: Betsy Walsh

September 26, 2017 | By The Collation

We are devastated to announce that Betsy Walsh, our beloved head of reader services here at the Folger, passed away on Friday, September 22, 2017. Betsy was an inseparable part of the Folger—indeed, for many of us, she was the embodiment of the Folger Reading Room. She worked here for 43 years—about half of the Folger’s existence since it opened in 1932.… Continue Reading

A nineteenth-century family circus

September 19, 2017 | By Sarah Hovde

A few months ago, I wrote about the process of creating brief catalog records for the Folger’s playbill collection. Since then, I’ve completed records for playbills from London and all of Scotland, and have begun working my way through playbills from the rest of England. Recently, I came across a playbill for a performance by Cooke’s Royal Circus in Birmingham. I thought the name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it until I checked our catalog and remembered that I had cataloged another playbill for Cooke’s Royal Circus over the summer.… Continue Reading