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
Marginalizing heralds and antiquaries
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of major transition for English heralds, as the number of arms being granted increased exponentially, requiring improved methods of record-keeping. Their job was both ceremonial (ordering and keeping score at tournaments, ordering…
The books on our shelf
Headers on blogs are sometimes just pretty pictures, just as sometimes books sitting on a shelf are just books sitting there. In this case, however, the books sitting on the shelf in our header image are not only pretty, but…
Watermarks & hidden collections
Hidden collections—that is, collections that are undescribed or underdescribed—are exceedingly common in libraries and archives. Until recently, the manuscript and printed paper that make up the E. Williams watermark collection, including papers of the Hale family of King’s Walden and…
Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November
Last week, while flipping through a magazine (sorry, I don’t recall which one, but you probably all read the same stuff I do), my attention was caught by a photo of two people wearing what I immediately recognized as Guy…
Folger Tooltips: Announcing Impos[i]tor
With today’s Tooltip, the Folger Shakespeare Library is proud to offer Impositor, an online tool to automatically arrange digital images from the collection into simulated impositions (the laying out of pages into the formes of printed sheets). Folio, quarto, octavo,…
A ghost for Halloween
I’d like to say that I cleverly scheduled the installation of Benjamin Wilson’s William Powell as Hamlet encountering the Ghost for last Friday so that the Founders’ Room would have a ghost in time for Halloween. Unfortunately, there were witnesses…
Reading the romantics
What do Folger staff read in their spare time? Not necessarily Shakespeare! I’ve recently finished a wonderful book by Daisy Hay called The Young Romantics, published in the spring of 2010 and now available in hardback, paperback, or on a…
Undergraduate reports from the Reading Room
Today’s post features two accounts from students at The George Washington University who are in this semester’s Folger Undergradaute Seminar. Lyssa Meddin When I first heard about the Folger Shakespeare Library Undergraduate Seminar I was finishing up my freshman year…
Interrogating a hermit
Three months ago the Folger was lucky enough to acquire a letter from Thomas Cromwell to George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury. I say lucky because while roughly 350 letters from Cromwell survive, almost all of them are at either the…
Q & A: Julie Ainsworth, Head of Photography and Digital Imaging
Julie Ainsworth, Head of Photography and Digital Imaging Although many readers at and visitors to the Folger Shakespeare Library might not know her name, most know her work. Julie Ainsworth, Head of Photography and Digital Imaging, is responsible for the…
Battling over 18th-century rights to Shakespeare
In working on the Shakespeare Collection NEH grant-funded project for the past year, I have learned more than I ever imagined possible regarding the history of eighteenth-century publishing, particularly the “Shakespeare copyrights” and ownership disputes between booksellers. The feud between…
The KJV, Ben Franklin, and Noah Webster
As part of the library’s celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, the Folger Institute hosted a conference bringing together scholars from across the United States and the United Kingdom to discuss the effect…