The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger
Indenture of apprenticeship for John Holden

Bound to Serve: Apprenticeship Indentures at the Folger

January 5, 2018 | By Guest Author

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 letter, Style offers his apprentice several pieces of salient advice and stern admonition.1 Dering must be “delygent” to “learne the lanngwedge” (of his post abroad), to “spend not [his] time eydlye,” and to “mend and better [his] wryttinge” so that he “maye com to be Iimployed in [Style’s] affarres.”… Continue Reading
cs number featured for x.d.131

The Case Files

January 2, 2018 | By Meaghan J. Brown and Elizabeth DeBold

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 contributions to the Folger’s holdings. This number is known here at the Folger Shakespeare Library as a case number. They were usually written unobtrusively in pencil somewhere on the items bought by the Folgers, during the period when their personal collection was being transformed into our library.… Continue Reading

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

December 26, 2017 | By 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?     As usual, leave your thoughts and guesses in the comments below and we’ll be back in the new year with an answer.… Continue Reading

Twentieth-century illustration technique revealed in a “snow Globe”

December 19, 2017 | By 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. Pen and ink drawing, circa 1968. Folger ART Box H688 no.3.5. It is one of about 900 items in the “C.… Continue Reading

Folger Collections related to Dramatic Performance

December 12, 2017 | By Owen Williams and 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 actors to stage drama. We hope it elucidates some of the “librarian’s short-hand” that we started to demystify in a previous post.… Continue Reading

A Sophisticated Leaf

December 5, 2017 | By 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 leaf that was missing a corner, which someone attempted to render “complete” by cutting and pasting the relevant bit from a different copy.… Continue Reading
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