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Folger Collections

"To Madame Sarah"
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"To Madame Sarah"

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Elizabeth DeBold

Sarah Bernhardt is, for many, synonymous with the melodramatic. One of the most well-known and celebrated actresses of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, she was described by contemporaries as “indefatigable;” “an actress without a rival;” and “a queen of art.”The…

Following the Trail of Counterfeits in the Folger’s Reformation Collection
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Following the Trail of Counterfeits in the Folger’s Reformation Collection

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Drew Thomas

A guest post by Drew Thomas Among the many collections at the Folger, besides its magnificent Shakespeare Collection, is the Stickelberger Collection of Reformation Tracts. This valuable collection, purchased by the Folger in 1977, was compiled by the Swiss writer…

A red proof sheet used as printer's waste
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A red proof sheet used as printer's waste

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Caroline Duroselle-Melish

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.…

Marks in Manuals
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Marks in Manuals

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Bénédicte Miyamoto

A guest post by Bénédicte Miyamoto Are these manuals I spy in the workshop? It is impossible to read the spines of the books in the illustration of an artist’s workshop in Salomon de Caus’s 1612 La perspectiue: auec la…

Hooked on Book Furniture...
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Hooked on Book Furniture...

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Dawn Hoffmann

… corners, clasps (and other interesting metal parts of a book)! A guest post by Dawn Hoffmann What makes these little (and some not so tiny) metal parts so intriguing? Why were they put on these books and who might…

The Many Different Ways to Make a Lacemaking Pattern Book: The Case of Vinciolo's Book
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The Many Different Ways to Make a Lacemaking Pattern Book: The Case of Vinciolo's Book

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Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Folger Shakespeare Library, NK9405.V5 1592 Cage. Photo by Caroline Duroselle-Melish Early modern lacemaking pattern books are ‘eye catching’ picture books with pages after pages of intricate designs. Unlike most modern pattern books, they generally include very little instructions on…

All the Purposes of a Library: a piece of blue ephemera
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All the Purposes of a Library: a piece of blue ephemera

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Elizabeth DeBold

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:…

A Wyncoll's Tale
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A Wyncoll's Tale

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Elizabeth DeBold Heather Wolfe

Let’s face it, every special collections library has at least a few mystery items in the vault that are quietly passed down over the decades from curator to curator (or cataloger to cataloger, or acquisitions librarian to acquisitions librarian). These…

Dining with the Hermaphrodites: Courtly Excess and Dietary Manuals in Early Modern France
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Dining with the Hermaphrodites: Courtly Excess and Dietary Manuals in Early Modern France

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Kathleen Long

A guest post by Kathleen Long In 1605, a satirical novel, now known under the title L’Isle des Hermaphrodites (The Island of Hermaphrodites) was circulating on the streets of Paris. It was very popular at the time, according to contemporary…

A late 15th-century tapestry fragment with visible restorations
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A late 15th-century tapestry fragment with visible restorations

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Erin Blake

Yes, indeed, the Folger collection item the March 2020 Crocodile Mystery is two-toned because of fading (and yes, indeed, it is a tapestry). Congratulations and thanks to Elisabeth, Ed, and Carolyn for their comments. The mystery wasn’t quite solved, though:…

Mellow Yellow and 50 Shades of Grey: the challenges of bi-tonal images
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Mellow Yellow and 50 Shades of Grey: the challenges of bi-tonal images

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Abbie Weinberg

Well, I’m afraid our mystery image might have been a little too mysterious. For those of you still playing along, the mystery image from last week is an image from a microfilm of Folger MS D.a.6 that seems to show…

Sizing Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Sizing Shakespeare's Sonnets

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Faith Acker

A guest post by Faith Acker I still remember the first rare book I handled in a library. It was Thomas Caldecott’s copy of the Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before imprinted (Thomas Thorpe, 1609) a beautiful quarto that Caldecott presented to…

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