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All 62 posts by

Heather Wolfe

is an Associate Librarian and Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger. She loves convincing people that they can read English secretary hand and sharing quirky and unexpected collection finds and stories.
The book thief
page of Elizabeth Parris's deposition
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The book thief

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Heather Wolfe

Response of James Tabor, public notary, July 10, 1604, in Henry Cotton vs. William Windle. Cambridge University Archives, Comm.Ct.II.11, fol. 57v. Today’s post is about a woman, Margaret Cotton, who allegedly stole a book in 1602. The book might have…

Malicious teaseling: or how a simple reference question got complicated
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Malicious teaseling: or how a simple reference question got complicated

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Heather Wolfe

We had seven excellent answers to the Crocodile, which included an image titled “Malice,” but not the text below it. The general consensus was that the cowering man was winding thread or wool off of a drop spindle. One of…

Pre-pandemic phone photo fails
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Pre-pandemic phone photo fails

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Heather Wolfe

As we hit the one year mark of special collections reading rooms closing around the world because of the pandemic, “primary source research” for many of us now consists of scrolling through our phones in search of photos of collection…

Pandemic Paleography
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Pandemic Paleography

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Heather Wolfe

“I may be losing what are left of my marbles, but in L.b.21 look at the middle wiggly bits of the brackets on the right hand side of 5r (second & third brackets), 5v (1st bracket) 6v (1st & 2nd…

A Wyncoll's Tale
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A Wyncoll's Tale

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Elizabeth DeBold Heather Wolfe

Let’s face it, every special collections library has at least a few mystery items in the vault that are quietly passed down over the decades from curator to curator (or cataloger to cataloger, or acquisitions librarian to acquisitions librarian). These…

Early modern straws; or, quills are not just for writing
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Early modern straws; or, quills are not just for writing

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Heather Wolfe

This post is brought to you by John Ward, who observed in the 1660s that a good way to “avoid drinking too much Beer” is to “suck itt in with a quill.” John Ward’s sage advice, given him by Dr.…

Uncancelling the cancelled: recovering obliterated owners of old books
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Uncancelling the cancelled: recovering obliterated owners of old books

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Heather Wolfe

Last week’s Crocodile showed a detail of a cancelled name on the title page of Folger STC 17132. Title page of Folger STC 17132 with Humphrey Dyson’s name deleted. Despite the parallel hatching that was used to conceal it, two…

About that frontispiece portrait of Hannah Woolley....
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About that frontispiece portrait of Hannah Woolley....

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Heather Wolfe

I was delighted by the range of responses we got for last week’s Crocodile post on the identity of the woman in the engraving: Catherine of Braganza, Cleopatra, Lady Frances Egerton, Elizabeth Nash nee Hall (Shakespeare’s grand-daughter), Hannah Woolley, and…

Early modern head lice remedies; or, dealing with pediculosis, Renaissance-style
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Early modern head lice remedies; or, dealing with pediculosis, Renaissance-style

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Heather Wolfe

With assistance by Beth DeBold This post is dedicated to all those parents and caregivers who have gotten the dreaded phone call while at work: “your child has lice.” You have to drop everything and retrieve your child from school,…

Imagining an 18th century Jane Doe
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Imagining an 18th century Jane Doe

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Heather Wolfe
A fake woman with fake initials and a fake seal? What is going on with these early 18th century affidavits? Curator of Manuscripts Heather Wolfe explores burials, bureaucracy, and "ritualized compliance" in this post about two recent acquisitions.
Was early modern writing paper expensive?
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Was early modern writing paper expensive?

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Heather Wolfe

Many of us have repeated the assertion that writing paper in early modern England was expensive and scarce, but it has always bothered me. After hearing this fairly regularly in response to two common questions —“Why did people write on…

Imagining a lost set of commonplace books
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Imagining a lost set of commonplace books

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Heather Wolfe

As observed by one of our respondents, last week’s Crocodile was a detail from a blank leaf bisected by a vertical line in graphite, with a column of handwritten letters consisting of the Roman alphabet followed by the Greek alphabet. Folger…

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