Folger Collections

What is a copy of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, and Aulus Persius Flaccus Translated (1673) doing in the Folger’s “Shakespeare and the American Story” exhibition?

In anticipation of International Dog Day, Imaging Associate Chris Naulty shares some adorable dogs from the photo album of actress Ellen Terry.

We revisit Erica Haugtvedt‘s August 2026 presentation as part of our Folger Book Club discussion of Zadie Smith’s The Fraud.

Brandi K. Adams explores how concerns about “artificiall intelligence” manifest in the 16th and 17th centuries, reflecting the concerns of our own time.

Curator Heather Wolfe shares heavily annotated books in the Folger collection from early modern readers who knew the power of underlining words, adding notes in the margins, and even an occasional doodle in anything they were reading.

An introduction to the so‑called ‘temporary’  boards bindings that are still on our copy of the first American edition of Shakespeare.

The cautionary tale of this English Civil War-era pamphlet follows a respectable barrister’s descent into a life of crime and his ultimate redemption through repentance, a narrative shaped by the political imperatives of the time.

One of the books in the Folger collection is extraordinary for both its cover, the War of the Roses binding created by book artist Léon Maillard, and its contents, the Pavier quartos, an early try at publishing a collection of Shakespeare’s plays.

In honor of America250 and our exhibition Shakespeare and the American Story, we celebrate milestone birthdays of collection items, from a book that is as the same age as America to coins that are thousands of years old.

Chris Naulty, our Imaging Associate, shares some of the weird and wonderful things she has encountered in our early modern recipe books while working on the project to digitize them.

Artistic Research Fellow Evelyn Reidy shares how she is using the Folger’s collection material related to witchcraft, early modern beliefs, and women’s knowledge to help her portray the women executed in Salem in 1692-93 in her new play, More Weight, or I Saw Goody Proctor at the Gift Shop.