Caroline Duroselle-Melish
Beyond National Boundaries: A Season of New Acquisitions, Part II
More new exciting additions to the Folger collection!
Beyond National Boundaries: A Season of New Acquisitions, Part I
Caroline Duroselle-Melish, Curator of Early Modern Books and Prints, highlights some exciting new items in the Folger collection
The ballad of the woodworm, or ‘reading’ holes in woodblocks
This month’s Folger Mystery explores the reuse of a woodblock print as it was eaten away by worms.
Caught Inky Handed: Fingerprints of Practitioners
Thank you for your suggestions regarding these fingerprints. They are, indeed, the marks of two different fingers with different patterns. I tend to think, like Elizabeth, that they are the marks of a middle finger and an index or a…
Paper Trades
Thank you for your insightful comments on our Crocodile Mystery, which I enjoyed reading as usual. My heartfelt thanks also to Andrew Hare, Supervisory East Asian Painting Conservator, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National…
Marks on Bindings
Thank you for your witty guesses to this month’s Crocodile, they are great! I also need to make a disclaimer: I am far from having collected enough evidence to answer this mystery, so like you, I only have guesses to…
An Unfinished Title Page Border?
Many thanks for your answers to last week’s post. They convey the puzzling nature of this title page border: Is it an unfinished work? Was it intended to be completed by readers of the book? Does it look different in…
A red proof sheet used as printer's waste
Thank you for your guesses on this month’s crocodile mystery. The leaf pictured here shows text from the Litany printed in red. The blank space is where the text in black would have been printed in a second press run.…
The Many Different Ways to Make a Lacemaking Pattern Book: The Case of Vinciolo's Book
Folger Shakespeare Library, NK9405.V5 1592 Cage. Photo by Caroline Duroselle-Melish Early modern lacemaking pattern books are ‘eye catching’ picture books with pages after pages of intricate designs. Unlike most modern pattern books, they generally include very little instructions on…
Book Stamps
Many thanks for your guesses. Folger Shakespeare Library, 218- 045q (photo by Caroline Duroselle-Melish) What you see in this picture is the verso of a title page leaf. The stamp at the top of the picture is indeed the one…
The Location of Plates in a Book
When consulting a book with plates (that is, inserted leaves printed separately from the text), it is best not to assume that they have been placed in the same location in all copies of the same edition nor that their…