Folger Collections

For an early April Fools’ Day treat, enjoy this selection of collection items that showcase the weird and wonderful history of early modern comedy.

In this mock exhibition catalog entry for a writing class, Gabi, an undergraduate student at GWU, takes a closer look at early modern midwifery using The Birth of Mankinde.

In this exhibition catalog entry for a writing class, Eleanor, an undergraduate student at GWU, examines a Dutch print portraying the Gunpowder Plotters and their fate.

A GWU undergraduate student shares their experience working at the Folger for their class project on Shakespeare and early modern dentistry an Art in the Age of Shakespeare course.

This solution to February’s Folger Mystery looks at how editors of A Midsummer Night’s Dream have dealt with the ambiguous presence of one its fairies.

Lingua Latina Medica Accessabilis Facta, vel Febrem Habeo et Præscriptio Sola Campanæ Bovinæ Plus Est or Medical Latin Made Accessible, or I Have a Fever and the Only Prescription is More (of) Cow Bell. A look into John Ward’s Latin list, a glossary of the medical Latin terms used by the 17th century vicar in his diaries.

Senior Photography Associate William Davis shares his five favorite collection items in our new series: Folger Faves.

Take a look at our top five Collation posts from 2025. Thanks for a great year!

Seventeenth century resonances in a twentieth century postcard sent from Jamaica.

“Do not seek pleasure in music and singing” and other advice for widows from an early 17th-century manuscript.

An examination of marginalia in the Folger’s 1593 The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia

Looking at enslaved Black workers and the 1588 Spanish Armada’s afterlives in a 17th-century English miscellany