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The Collation

The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

The Collation is a gathering of useful information and observations from Folger staff and researchers. Read more about this blog

"A superfluous luxury": the St. Dunstan illuminated editions
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"A superfluous luxury": the St. Dunstan illuminated editions

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Author
Sarah Hovde

If you’re a regular user of the internet, you probably saw a multitude of images posted for the Bard’s birthday a few weeks ago. I can almost guarantee, though, that few were as opulent as the contribution from the University…

Guten Tag! Como vai? Parlez-vous français?
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Guten Tag! Como vai? Parlez-vous français?

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Author
Abbie Weinberg

Spring is Conference Season for many academics, allowing us to travel far and wide for our academic and professional enrichment. Sometimes, we find ourselves traveling in places where the local language is not one of the ones we are most…

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
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A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

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Author
Sarah Powell

There is a place in the north Atlantic Ocean where emerald waters and sandy shores await your toes—at least, according to a 2015 holiday brochure on Barbados. The royalist Richard Ligon scarpered there in 1647 after backing the losing side…

"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": May 2015
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"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": May 2015

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Author
The Collation

This month’s crocodile is more of a challenge than a mystery. We are looking for paleographer beginners and lifers to have a stab at these lines and tell us the truth about sugar. If you think you know whose handwriting…

How an 18th-century clergyman read his Folio
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How an 18th-century clergyman read his Folio

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Author
Caroline Duroselle-Melish

The Folger Shakespeare Library has never acquired another copy of a Shakespeare Folio since the Folgers’ time—until now. We recently added number 38 to our collection of Fourth Folios (S2915 Fo.4 no.38). Published in 1685, this was the last of…

Golden quills and paleography skills
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Golden quills and paleography skills

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Author
Paul Dingman

In my last post about EMMO’s progress, I briefly mentioned Practical Paleography or “PracPaleo,” our intentionally relaxed, no-registration-required introduction to transcribing secretary hand for readers and staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library. This time around, I thought it would be…

Correcting with cancel slips
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Correcting with cancel slips

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Sarah Werner

correcting 4 lines (STC 25286; sig. 1r)Thanks to my last post, when Mitch Fraas and I were looking at how different copies of the same book handled having a printer error (Judas instead of Jesus, in that case), I’ve spent the…

Folger files; or, a fetch-quest come to life
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Folger files; or, a fetch-quest come to life

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Author
Abbie Weinberg

“MS. corrections to the text, by the author (Folger files).” Such an innocuous note in the Folger copy note field of the record for our second copy of Philip Massinger’s The Bond-man (STC 17632). Meaghan Brown, the Folger’s CLIR Fellow,…

Keeping your Jesus and Judas straight
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Keeping your Jesus and Judas straight

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Mitch Fraas Sarah Werner

Co-written by Sarah Werner and Mitch Fraas One might think that when printing the New Testament, one would want to avoid at all costs mixing up Jesus and Judas. However, this month’s crocodile shows that such mistakes did happen: the typo…

"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?" April 2015
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"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?" April 2015

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Author
The Collation

Our crocodile series was disrupted by the work that went into creating the Folger’s new website, but we’re back in action this month with a perhaps appropriately timed mystery item: what manner of thing is this? It’s just a snippet…

Q & A: Caroline Duroselle-Melish, Curator of Early Modern Books and Prints
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Q & A: Caroline Duroselle-Melish, Curator of Early Modern Books and Prints

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Author
The Collation

In January, Caroline Duroselle-Melish joined the Folger as the new Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Early Modern Books and Prints, a position that gives her responsibility over books and prints through 1800. She has worked with a wide range of collections…

Taming a tight binding
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Taming a tight binding

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Author
Erin Blake

You know how some old bindings gently let a book stay open on its own, at a comfortable angle? And how other old bindings seem to willfully resist, taunting you by starting to close just as you get the book weights perfectly arranged? This post introduces a simple tool that…

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