Folger Collections

Until you get the hang of it, Henry Oxinden’s secretary hand is just plain difficult. Take a stab at this passage from p. 469 of his Miscellany (ca. 1642-1670), Folger MS V.b.110, extracted from a sermon delivered by Charles Herle at Winwick,…

The typical first awkwardly formed question is, “A transcriba…what, wait, what is it, again?” (Answer: “Transcribathon, an event running from noon to midnight in which we transcribe and encode manuscripts, the very first experimental event of its kind for Early Modern…

Simran Thadani’s wild guess for the December Crocodile Mystery, backed up by Martin Antonetti and Deborah J. Leslie, is our winner. This month’s image is a close-up of the lower right edge of a mezzotint engraving. The lines that look…

In June 1878, the novelist Anthony Trollope and a dozen of his friends boarded the yacht “Mastiff” in Scotland for its maiden voyage, a trip to Iceland. They stayed just over a week, but the episode provided Trollope with enough…

John Guillim’s partial manuscript draft of A Display of Heraldry (ca. 1610) was featured in our recently closed exhibition, “Symbols of Honor: Heraldry and Family History in Shakespeare’s England.” We showed an opening depicting “Fishes skynned” and “Crusted fishes” and compared…

One of the best bits of my job as a reference librarian here at the Folger (oh, who am I kidding? They’re all “best bits”) is answering research questions from scholars who are not on site. I really enjoy being…

The change of pace in this month’s crocodile mystery is thanks to Salvador Dalí. Surely you, like our commenters, recognized those elongated legs. And if I’d shared the companion image, you’d have guessed that immediately as well. Dalí’s backdrop for…

When is a repair to a title page more like a clue to a bibliographical puzzle? detail of an altered title page This question has intrigued me since, some years ago, I first consulted a Folger copy of John Rogers’s…

We are used to thinking of productions of Shakespeare’s plays as creating new works of art that demonstrate the vitality of the centuries-old drama. But in the right hands, books can achieve the same effect. Emily Martin’s The Tragedy of…

A mother and her two daughters unexpectedly greet you when you open the binding of Folger MS V.a.174. albumen print of a mother and two daughters affixed to the front pastedown of Folger MS V.a.174, a 1576 manuscript of the…

I joined the Folger just over two months ago, and one of the most delightful things about my new job as the Reference and Outreach Specialist (aside from the fact that I get to work at the Folger!) is that…

Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion -Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, IV.xv In Julius Caesar, Costume Designer Mariah Hale handles the designs for soldiers and soothsayers, assassins and their prey. Mariah has worked in design and textiles for 25…