crocodile mystery
“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: September 2020
Welcome back for another Crocodile post! As you face the new challenges Fall brings to us, take a few moments to breathe out, and take a look at this month’s mystery. What’s going on in this image? Where is it…
“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: August, 2020
Some types of publication have fairly standard proportions. For example, you can be pretty sure this oblong volume isn’t a Bible or a play text: Front cover of The pen’s excellencie, or, The secretaries delighte / Written by Martin Billingsley.…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: July 2020
Welcome back for another Crocodile Mystery! As you enjoy this first week of July (really? really? Who said the calendar could do that?), spare some thoughts for this mystery image. What’s going on in this image? What are those letters…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: June 2020
For June’s crocodile mystery, something made us chuckle in this image. What is it? Image from Luna, click to enlarge Leave your guesses below and we’ll be back with the answer next week.
A red proof sheet used as printer's waste
Thank you for your guesses on this month’s crocodile mystery. The leaf pictured here shows text from the Litany printed in red. The blank space is where the text in black would have been printed in a second press run.…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: May 2020
Welcome to the May Crocodile Mystery! Take a look at this image: This sheet has been used as endpaper in a book (the image has been rotated to make the text more legible) but can you guess to what it…
All the Purposes of a Library: a piece of blue ephemera
Thanks to all of you who participated in guessing for this month’s Crocodile Mystery! As some of you noted, it is a book bound in eighteenth-century waste paper, particularly waste paper related to a late eighteenth-century edition of the Cyclopaedia:…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: April 2020
For April’s Crocodile mystery, take a look at this image and let us know what you think is going on! As always, leave your comments and we’ll be back next week with more information!
“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: March 2020
It’s said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. The Collation’s March 2020 Crocodile Mystery, however, comes in with a unicorn and stag, and the following questions: what is this object, and why is…
“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: February 2020
Welcome back to our monthly Crocodile Mystery! For those of you (ahem) mystified by this designation for our reoccurring series of posts, take a look at the post where it was named! For the question this month, we’re returning to…
“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: December 2019
Welcome to the final Crocodile Mystery of 2019! As we close out the year (and the decade!), we invite you to look at the image below and tell us, if you can, what on earth it’s talking about?! Leave your…
What are ancient coins doing at the Folger Shakespeare Library?
Thanks for the great guesses at the identity of the November 2019 Crocodile. It’s tempting to pick one at random and just run with it (“Why yes, it is King Lear’s lost button!”) but in fact, Robin Swope’s guess that…