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The Collation

The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

The Collation is a gathering of useful information and observations from Folger staff and researchers. Read more about this blog

Was early modern writing paper expensive?
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Was early modern writing paper expensive?

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Author
Heather Wolfe

Many of us have repeated the assertion that writing paper in early modern England was expensive and scarce, but it has always bothered me. After hearing this fairly regularly in response to two common questions —“Why did people write on…

Announcing a New Folger-NACBS Short-Term Fellowship
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Announcing a New Folger-NACBS Short-Term Fellowship

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Author
Amanda Herbert

The Folger Institute and the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) are delighted to announce a new fellowship for scholars of the British world who are working on topics from the early modern period through to the present day.…

The Shakespeare stamps
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The Shakespeare stamps

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Author
Sarah Hovde

As several philatelically-astute readers quickly identified, the portrait of Shakespeare shown in last week’s Crocodile mystery is from a stamp!     These one shilling stamps were issued annually for a number of years at the turn of the 20th…

“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: February 2018
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“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: February 2018

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Author
The Collation

This month’s crocodile mystery is an example of one of our favorite things: Shakespeare portraits! What kind of item is this portrait of Shakespeare from, and what is significant about the item?

Books of Offices
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Books of Offices

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Author
Nicholas Popper

A guest post by Nicholas Popper The Folger has fourteen of an odd, unloved sort of manuscript that I’ve taken to calling “Books of Offices,” which exist in over a hundred versions throughout archives in the US and UK. Typically…

Book Reviews from the Royal Society
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Book Reviews from the Royal Society

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Author
Abbie Weinberg

Book reviews are a staple of many academic journals. They are a way to learn about new books in the field and to see what your fellow scholars think of them. And they’ve been around for a really long time.…

Bound to Serve: Apprenticeship Indentures at the Folger
Indenture of apprenticeship for John Holden
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Bound to Serve: Apprenticeship Indentures at the Folger

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Author
Urvashi Chakravarty

A guest post by Dr. Urvashi Chakravarty In 1616, the apprentice Robert Dering received the following letter from his master Thomas Style. Letter from Thomas Style to Robert Dering Dering was bound overseas with one Mr. Culpepper, and in his…

The Case Files
cs number featured for x.d.131
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The Case Files

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Author
Elizabeth DeBold Meaghan J. Brown

The problem with using IDs in mysteries is we also attempt to make them easy to discover. Elisabeth Chaghafi got it in one: this number belongs to X.d.131 and marks this item as one of Henry and Emily Folger’s original…

"What manner o'thing is your crocodile?": January 2018
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"What manner o'thing is your crocodile?": January 2018

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Author
The Collation

Happy Boxing Day! We’ve brought you another crocodile mystery to open with your holiday goodies. This month’s mystery comes in two forms and appears in two places. Tell us, if you would, what these mysterious numbers suggest to you?    …

Twentieth-century illustration technique revealed in a "snow Globe"
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Twentieth-century illustration technique revealed in a "snow Globe"

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Author
Erin Blake

While looking through the Folger collection for snow scenes (it’s that time of year!) I stumbled across this image of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, drawn in the 1960s by C. Walter Hodges: C. Walter Hodges (1909-2004). The Second Globe Under Snow.…

Folger Collections related to Dramatic Performance
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Folger Collections related to Dramatic Performance

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Author
Owen Williams Rachel B. Dankert

In hopes that we can help theater historians discover more about relevant Folger holdings through their own explorations, we have created this post on “named” collections at the Folger that relate to actors, dramatic performance, and the texts used by…

A Sophisticated Leaf
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A Sophisticated Leaf

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Author
Elizabeth DeBold

Henry V fragment. Photo by Elizabeth DeBold. There were several good guesses about this month’s Crocodile Mystery—a crease in the paper, or an off-center, pre-stamped envelope. But, Elisabeth Chaghafi was right on the money with her guess: this is a…

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