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
Innogen and Ghost Characters
In a humorous post from 2017, web comic creator Mya Gosling mused about the absence of mothers in Shakespeare’s plays. Employing her signature stick-figure style, she presented a series of single-panel comics that put these absent maternal figures back in…
Postcards in the (home) archive 1942-43
a guest post by Stephen Grant Fig. 1. Folger Shakespeare Library from Northwest 1942Author’s Collection, photo by Stephen Grant Printed on picture side: FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C. Printed on address side: PUB. BY GARRISON TOY & NOVELTY CO.…
When the Body is Ill, The Mind Suffers: Shakespeare's Unravelling of Women’s Hysteria and Madness in the Elizabethan Era
a guest post by Alexandria Zlatar During my research fellowship with the Folger Institute, my investigation has undertaken an exploration into a highly under-represented aspect of mental health and has focused on lived-in experiences of mental illness in Shakespearian England.…
Stealing Signs
Thanks to everyone who shared their guesses on last week’s post and congratulations to those of you who guessed correctly! Sermo mirabilis: or the silent language by Charles de La Fin, London, 1693. Folger call number: L174 The mystery image…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: August 2022
In this month’s Crocodile Mystery, the question is simple, but the image and its utility are not. What is the purpose of this picture? Come back next week when all will be revealed!
My True Meaning: emotions in seventeenth-century wills
Anyone who has read early modern wills, whether in an attempt to confirm the names of family members or out of interest in material history, knows that they are full of emotion. Dying men and women describe their family members…
Performing Diplomacy and Selling Spectacle
a guest post by Nat Cutter In this post, following on from a previous one on Shakespeare and Beyond that introduced my ASECS-Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship project, I’ll share some of the (still ongoing) findings of my research into North African…
2022-2023 Folger Fellows
The Folger Institute is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 cohort of research fellows. Two years of virtual fellowships and programming have taught us the importance of supporting not only collections-based research, but also the various forms research support must take…
Europa into the Waves: John Dee and Meandering Research
a guest post by Dyani Taff Research feels nonlinear, like tracing a spiral, or a meandering river, or possibly like following ants’ pheromone trails, squiggly lines that crisscross each other and yet create a navigable chaos central to the ants’…
Caught Inky Handed: Fingerprints of Practitioners
Thank you for your suggestions regarding these fingerprints. They are, indeed, the marks of two different fingers with different patterns. I tend to think, like Elizabeth, that they are the marks of a middle finger and an index or a…
Happy Retirement, Hamnet!
After over a quarter century of devoted bibliographic service, the time has come to bid farewell to Hamnet, the Folger Shakespeare Library’s first OPAC (“Online Public Access Catalog”). Hamnet officially retires tonight, at the end of the last day of…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: July 2022
Whose fingerprint is it? Is it a reader’s, printer’s, or binder’s fingerprint? I’ve been asking myself this question since I saw this trace in a Reformation pamphlet https://catalog.folger.edu/record/79579?ln=en . It is placed in the gutter of the page and it…