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
learning from mistakes
One of my favorite categories of early modern books are those that show errors, small mistakes made in the process of printing them. a leaf that was folded when it was printed I don’t love them because I like to…
Q & A: Carol Brobeck, Fellowships Administrator
title page of The Mariners Mirrour Anyone who has been a Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library can attest to the central role that Carol Brobeck plays as the Fellowships Administrator in making their work possible. She has also worked…
Folger Tooltips: Hamnet URLs, part two
Hello and welcome to another installment in a series of tooltips on the quiet, yet oh-so-ubiquitous universal resource locator (aka URL). As pointed out in Hamnet URLs, part one: because “live” URLS in the Hamnet database are session-based, they can’t…
Woodcut, engraving, or what?
When a reader needs to verify the printmaking technique behind an early modern book illustration, I’m always happy to grab my favorite 10x loupe and head up to the Reading Room to have a closer look. By popular request, here…
Women marking the text
“I beegan, to ourloke this Booke . . . .” These words are written by Lady Anne Clifford on the title page of her copy of John Selden’s Titles of Honor (1631), which is featured in the first case of…
One way of looking at many books
Last week I wrote about two students who worked on (two different copies of) the same book. But looking over the 64 texts that the 66 students I’ve taught over the last five years (in eight different seminars), I’m struck…
A newly uncovered presentation copy by Margaret Cavendish
Heather: The other day I received an email from the Conservation Lab with the subject line: “Annotation found on the verso of a lined frontispiece,” and a link to a couple of images, one taken under ultraviolet light. The conservators…
Two ways of looking at the same book
As I’ve written about before, in my Undergraduate Seminars students devote the bulk of their research time to crafting a biography of the book they’ve chosen as their primary focus. They find out who wrote the book and who printed…
Investigating the origins of a Folger manuscript
With this post we inaugurate a series by people working at the Folger as Interns. Classroom work and professional training never quite capture the true nature of the j – o – b. Therefore, for those pursuing advanced degrees in…
Folger Tooltips: Introducing "Folger Collection, by Folger Readers"
The purpose of this post is to introduce a new venue for you, Dear Readers, to post, share, and comment on photos taken by in the course of your research here: a new Flickr group, “Folger Collection, by Folger Readers”.…
Wagner and Shakespeare meet in Bayreuth
Back in August, I posted about a unique artists’ book from 1995. Today, I’d like to showcase an example from the other end of the twentieth century, an artists’ book created in 1908 by American painter Pinckney Marcius-Simons (1867–1909). In…
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Did you think that “reduce, reuse, recycle” was just a modern slogan? Check out this early modern book: That’s an image of the front inside cover and front endleaf of a 1636 edition of Charles Fitz-Geffrey’s The blessed birth-day, which…