The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: March 2022

February 22, 2022 | By The Collation

As you’re waiting for the interminable month of February to finally expire, distract yourself with the following thought: Prints like this one were useful as well as decorative. What use did they serve? Leave your thoughts and guesses in the comments below, and we’ll be back next week with more information.… Continue Reading
Front and back of a postcard depicting the Folger with writing

A Folger Original: Edwin Eliott Willoughby

February 17, 2022 | By Guest Author

a guest post by Stephen Grant “Until he finally reached retirement age, Willoughby was a problem,” penned Louis B. Wright in Of Books and Men (University of South Carolina Press, 1976, p.135), looking back on two decades as Folger Director, 1948–1968.  I had not thought about Edwin Willoughby for years. Then, on September 20, 2021, I visited Mary L. Martin Ltd, the world’s largest postcard shop, located near the Susquehanna River in Havre de Grace, MD.… Continue Reading

Interview and excerpt: Paul Dover, The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe

February 15, 2022 | By The Collation

At the Folger, we are proud to sponsor research inquiry within a vibrant and intellectually generous community. Periodically, as that research is published, we circle back to talk with recent authors to showcase the role of collections-based inquiry on their methods and arguments. Today, we pose a series of questions to 2015-2016 NEH Long-term Fellow Dr. Paul M. Dover that get at the heart of his research at the Folger, followed by an excerpt from Dr.… Continue Reading

Alcohol, Armies, and Contested Sovereignty in Early Modern Ireland

February 8, 2022 | By Guest Author

a guest post by Lila Chambers The association between Ireland and excessive drinking is a pervasive one, from fifteenth century texts detailing treacherous feasts held by Irish opponents to Henry II, to Edmund Spender’s A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596), to simian caricatures promoted in Victorian-era Punch cartoons, to the present-day effluvia of t-shirts, buttons, and banners that linger after St.… Continue Reading

Slurrop! An ode to soup

February 4, 2022 | By Elizabeth DeBold

In 1595, English writer William Fiston (or Phiston) produced a translation of a French book of manners for children. Topics included proper behavior that was important for Church and school, but also a section on table manners. Here, Fiston admonishes his readers: …beware thou soupe not thy pottage, but eate it leisurely with a spoone, without taking it into thy mouth greedily, forcibly drawing thy breath with it, as some clownes do use, sounding at the receipt of euery spoonefull Slurrop.… Continue Reading

Q & A: Ashley Buchanan, Associate Director for Fellowships, Folger Institute

January 18, 2022 | By The Collation

The Folger Institute is pleased to introduce Dr. Ashley Buchanan, our new Associate Director for Fellowships. Dr. Buchanan received her Ph.D. in early modern history in 2018 from the University of South Florida and comes to the Folger with experience as the study abroad coordinator at Mercer University and as a postdoctoral fellow in the Plant Humanities Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks.… Continue Reading

George Goodwin, neo-Latin poet, identified as George Goodwin, rector of Moreton, Essex

January 11, 2022 | By Erin Blake

Today’s Collation post is short and sweet, and courtesy of Heather Wolfe, the Folger’s Curator of Manuscripts. Heather is currently on sabbatical in the UK, having been awarded the 2021–22 Munby Fellowship at Cambridge University Library, but she still occasionally sends gems back to Folger catalogers. This particular gem, and permission to blog about it, arrived just in the nick of time: the post I’d planned to publish today turned out to require material that’s inaccessible during the Folger’s multi-year renovation.… Continue Reading

Trappings of the stage

January 4, 2022 | By Rachel B. Dankert

Thanks to those who registered your guesses on our most recent Crocodile Mystery. All of the guesses gazed upward, when the answer actually lay underfoot. While these strange designs resemble theatrical lighting effects, they are, in fact, designs for stage trap doors. R.B. [Bayley] was not satisfied with the status quo. Here, we see a dissatisfied theater-worker write to theater impresario and actor Robert William Elliston to argue his perspective.… Continue Reading
January 2022 croc mystery image