Folger Faves: January 2026

Welcome to the Collation’s newest series, Folger Faves! Folger Faves will appear semi-regularly alongside our other semi-regular series, Folger Mysteries. Like Folger Mysteries, we hope that Folger Faves will introduce you to unexpected items from the Folger vaults, based on the eclectic tastes of Folger staff members. Riffing on BBC Radio 4’s long-running radio show Desert Island Discs (in which famous people share the eight soundtracks, book (in addition to the works of Shakespeare and the Bible), and luxury item they would want if stranded on a desert island), Folger Faves asks Folger staff to share the five Folger collections items they would want if banished to the Tower of London, perhaps in the company of other long-term Tower prisoners like Sir Walter Raleigh (13 years), Robert Carr and Frances Howard, the earl and countess of Somerset (8 years), or Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland (17 years).  

To kick off the series, we’ve asked William Davis, Senior Photography Associate, who just retired after nearly 33 years at the Folger, what items would keep him occupied if he were sent to the Tower. 

Mary Massey loved early printed herbals, and her collection was substantial (331 Folger catalog records list her as a former owner). Some are hand colored, although this one is not. The long first section focuses on plants, but beginning after leaf 2I6 [leaf eye eye six], about ¾ of the way through the book, is a second section which has extraordinary woodcuts of animals, fish, birds, insects, etc. It also includes what we would now consider fantastic creatures (griffons, phoenixes, my personal favorite, the elusive mer-rabbit, etc.). The artistry of the wood carver(s) sets all of these images apart. When I digitized this, I became so excited that when I met the director of the Folger in the kitchen I persuaded him to come to the Imaging studio and look.

Jellicoe and Railton rendered full-page drawings for English periodicals depicting scenes from current London theatre productions. For the Victorian theatre audience, as well as for us, these drawings were an important window into the production. From an artistic standpoint, the era was a high-water mark of pen and ink drawing, and Jellicoe and Railton’s work is representative. The Folger owns more such drawings, both by Jellicoe and by other artists. In the Tower, I could copy this to teach myself to draw.

This is it: all the knowledge in the world of the philosophes, with huge, beautiful engravings depicting it in sometimes excruciating detail (for example, see one of several plates on papermaking shown below). 28 volumes total. Cheating on the “5 items” limit? Maybe, but I don’t care. Also check out the 11 volumes of plates (plus a supplement) at the end, published separately as Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication (AE25.E5 Plates Cage).

A physical as well as a literary work of art. This is the Publisher’s Proof Copy of a 30 copy limited edition, with vellum pages, lovingly set printed text and hand-painted initials, all bound in a glorious art leather binding. In the Tower I would finally have time to sit down with my online subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary and study these poems as they deserve.

Apparently this is the first pirated edition, printed a mere three months after the first edition sold out. Luther’s greatest work, it was a theological pillar of the Reformation in Germany (as the first installment of the Holy Bible, accessible to all in the vernacular) and also codified modern High German, in a single stroke. This copy is a part of Emanuel Stickelberger’s collection of over 700 Reformation books and tracts, all beautifully bound or re-bound. The collection is an amazing record of both in-depth works of the Reformation and the polemical pamphlets that popularized the ideas and arguments of the reformers. The latter became a landmark in the history of printing as well as in European Christian religious history. With this I can hone my German (which is admittedly quite dull now), and then enjoy Luther translating through the lens of his theology.