“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: October 2020

September 29, 2020 | By The Collation

Welcome to another Crocodile Mystery! This month we ask you to look at the image below and tell us what you think might be going on? What sort of questions does this image generate? As always, leave your thoughts in the comments below, and we’ll be back next week with more information.… Continue Reading

Who was a refugee in early modern England? The “Poor Palatines” of 1709

September 24, 2020 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Jeremy Fradkin Today’s Collation post is a little bit different. It showcases materials held in archival collections at the British Library and the National Archives, both in the United Kingdom. It is the product of an exciting new kind of opportunity—a non-residential fellowship—offered by the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library to its 2020-2021 Fellows. In May 1709, Queen Anne received an unusual petition from 512 men and women who were not her own subjects – at least, not yet.… Continue Reading

Re-discovering three-cornered notes

September 22, 2020 | By Erin Blake

A couple of years ago, when I had Saturday Duty in the Reading Room, a group of early-19th-century letters came across the desk. I noticed right away that one of them had unusual diagonal fold lines: Folger Y.d.23 (82x), a note from A. Bunn to R.W. Elliston, opened out to show the entire quarter-sheet of writing paper. It was a slow Saturday, so I spent some time figuring out how the creases lined up with each other, then folding sheets of scrap paper to match.… Continue Reading

Postcards of the Folger: Midsommer, Romeo and Ivliet, Merchant of Venice

September 17, 2020 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Stephen Grant It is my pleasure to show you two early sets of picture postcards of the Folger’s bas-reliefs by John Gregory. On the left you have photographic cards printed on Kodak (AZO) Paper. I’m hoping someone will identify the photographer. On the right you have gravure cards printed by the Meriden Gravure Company of Meriden CT.… Continue Reading

A guided tour of an incunabulum from 1478

September 15, 2020 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Sujata Iyengar Typography—the design of individual printed letter-shapes—makes printed books easier to read, and it can also shape our understanding and experience of the text and the content that an individual book contains. At first, early printed books imitated the layout and typography of scribal manuscripts. As this new medium—print—matured, however, printers, and even authors, learned how to use the affordances, or media-specific qualities, of printed sheets in order to indicate what kind of book they were creating, what kind of audience they were seeking, and even what kind of emotion they wished to evoke.… Continue Reading

Thoroughly Modern Helena

September 8, 2020 | By Abbie Weinberg

What do Robert Browning, Anna Maria Hall, Geraldine Jewsbury, John Ruskin, and Anna Swanwick, have in common? Quite a bit, actually. But in the Folger’s collection, they were the five “recipients” of Helena Faucit’s essays that formed the volume On Some of Shakespeare’s Female Characters. Helena Faucit (Lady Martin, later in life—her husband Theodore Martin was knighted as reward for his biography of Prince Albert, and both were confidants of Queen Victoria) began her London theatrical career in 1836, at the age of 22.… Continue Reading

Birdbrained

September 3, 2020 | By Elizabeth DeBold

Thanks to everyone who took a guess on this month’s Crocodile Mystery! As several of you pointed out, the teaser image is of some breed of cockatoo or cockatiel. Although I usually know a hawk from a handsaw, I will leave questions about exactly which species or sub-family of Cacatuidae this artistic rendition is meant to represent to experts. The hand-colored print itself is an early- to mid-nineteenth-century lithograph of Act III, sc.… Continue Reading

“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: September 2020

August 25, 2020 | By The Collation

Welcome back for another Crocodile post! As you face the new challenges Fall brings to us, take a few moments to breathe out, and take a look at this month’s mystery. What’s going on in this image? Where is it from, and what does it show? Leave your guesses in the comments below and we’ll be back next week with more info!… Continue Reading

Introduction to a Slightly Modified Theme: Postcards in the (home) archive

August 13, 2020 | By Guest Author

A guest post by Stephen Grant The thematic series I started Aug. 12, 2019, “Postcards in the Folger Archives,” has come to a pause. It has not escaped my dear collational readers’ attention that in my most recent post I relied more heavily on artifacts from my personal collection. It is time to make a prepositional change. I will shift from analyzing postcards in the Folger archives—not accessible due to the building renovation—to postcards for the Folger archives, lying untapped in my Arlington VA home. … Continue Reading

The “Quartermaster’s Map” of England and Wales

August 4, 2020 | By Erin Blake

Thanks for the excellent guesses on the identity of the August Crocodile Mystery! If you’ll permit me to indulge myself, I’ll prolong the suspense a little longer by showing some examples of what it might have been, but isn’t (and if you won’t permit me, no one’s stopping you from scrolling down now to read the answer). As several people pointed out, the tall and skinny binding is the sort of thing you’d expect for a ledger or some other kind of financial account book.… Continue Reading