The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

Under Cover: Forged Bindings on Display at the Folger

July 19, 2018 | By Elizabeth DeBold

Our latest exhibition, Form and Function: the Genius of the Book, provides visitors with a true visual feast. Offering a wide array of different types of bindings from the Folger collections, exhibition attendees will learn about the techniques and materials historically used to cover books and make them functional objects. I’m fascinated by the internal structure of the sewing, but am forced to admit that my favorite part of this exhibition is the decoration on the covers.… Continue Reading

Announcing a New Fellowship for Before “Farm to Table”: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures

July 12, 2018 | By Jonathan MacDonald

The Folger Institute is excited to announce a fellowship as part of Before Farm to Table: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, the inaugural project of the Folger Institute’s Mellon initiative in collaborative research. Each Before “Farm to Table” fellow will be awarded $10,000 for work in the Folger collections on topics related to early modern food and foodways in the British world, broadly conceived.… Continue Reading

Dancing Skeletons and Human Hair: Remembrance, Memento Mori, and Material Culture

July 10, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Catherine Elliott Tisdale How do you remember loved ones who have passed away or family members who have scattered across the four winds? Today if we lose someone, we turn to photos, family films, emails, texts, voicemails, screenshots from Skype or Facetime, letters, birthday cards, Facebook profiles (there are currently 30 million active “Remembrance” profiles for the deceased and counting), and of course, the memories and stories we share with one another.… Continue Reading

What is Lost is Found Again: the Lost Plays Database

July 3, 2018 | By Meaghan J. Brown

We had one answer right on the money for this July’s Crocodile Mystery—each of the images featured evidence of lost plays. The first image is a scrap from the Henslowe papers, recording a payment for John Day for the third part of The Blind Beggar. The second image shows a payment for the performance of Sir John Oldcastle (probably not the one spuriously attributed to Shakespeare, but a later play) before the King and Queen on March 12, 1630/1.… Continue Reading

Written in the Margent: Frances Wolfreston Revealed

June 21, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Sarah Lindenbaum “And what obscured in this fair volume lies / Find written in the margent of his eyes” (Romeo and Juliet, 1.3.87–88) Recently, two Shakespeare quartos held by the Folger Shakespeare Library were determined to likely be from the library of early modern reader Frances Wolfreston. The books themselves—copy 4 of the fifth quarto of Romeo and Juliet (1637) and a 1636 edition of Venus and Adonis—have been digitized through LUNA and are meticulously cataloged.… Continue Reading

A Pamphlet War in England, 1641-1643

June 19, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Brittney Washington Since my time as the 2017-2018 Nadia Sophie Seiler Rare Materials Resident is quickly approaching an end, I’ve been taking some time to look back on what I’ve learned about the amazing collection here at the Folger Shakespeare Library. My work focused specifically on cataloging printed materials found in the Wing bibliography (known formally as Short title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English books printed in other countries, 1641-1700).… Continue Reading

Engraved to Sell

June 14, 2018 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Printed ephemera can be exciting, especially when it reveals information that can be found nowhere else. When it is also a very rare piece with only a couple of extant copies recorded, and its design is intriguing, the discovery is even more interesting. I was thus thrilled when, following a tip from a colleague, I found in the Folger stacks this small seventeenth-century engraved print containing information on where in London one could subscribe to John Ogilby’s English Atlas.… Continue Reading

On looking into Chapman’s Homer once again

June 12, 2018 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Jessica Wolfe If the name George Chapman rings a bell, it is likely because you once read John Keats’s 1816 sonnet, “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer,” which describes the Romantic poet’s experience of reading Chapman’s translation of Homer for the first time. I have spent the past eight months conducting research for the first full-length biography of Chapman (ca.… Continue Reading

Proof print from the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

June 5, 2018 | By Erin Blake

As a couple of you guessed correctly last week, the June Crocodile Mystery is a proof for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery print of Lady Macbeth illustrating Macbeth, act 1, scene 5. In the finished state, which was printed from the same plate after additional work was done on it, the background is darker, and figure of Lady Macbeth has been filled in.… Continue Reading