i’m talking more about john milton and ‘books read promiscuously’ on monday at penn state. if you’re in central PA and want to learn about what we are learning about milton’s reading from what he wrote in his books, i’d love to see you! 📚♾️

a tiny bit of good news is that we have secured funding to digitize john milton's copy of holinshed's CHRONICLES (1587). the images will form part of MILTON'S LIBRARY, an open-access site featuring the 10 books positively identified as milton's w/ transcriptions/translations of his marginal notes.

Lots of fun getting students to collate, fold, and stab-stitch Hamlet Q1 today (adapted from @roaringgirle.bsky.social’s class!). And now have a little interactive quarto for my office door 📖

Realise there’s. It much to go on here, but what do we think about this vellum wrapper? Recycled indenture?

we welcome papers about public libraries, public records offices, or any other public institution that stewards or interacts with shakespeare and early modern texts. what can we be doing—as early modernists, book historians, & shakespeareans—to defend our public libraries? think capaciously!

paperback coming early 2026! ✨

new academic year = new planner

we welcome papers about public libraries, public records offices, or any other public institution that stewards or interacts with shakespeare and early modern texts. what can we be doing—as early modernists, book historians, & shakespeareans—to defend our public libraries? think capaciously!

editor for life, it seems

The news is all bad so here's a treat: a bunch of horoscopes written out by John Dee, a bunch of shopping lists written out by John Dee. A magus has to eat. (Bodleian Ms Ashmole 337)

soon-to-be material texts!

For those of you going to Denver’s SAA, please consider joining @roaringgirle.bsky.social and me to talk about the importance of public libraries, Shakespeare, and other early modern literature. There’s so much to consider in our current political climate:

🙏🏼

louder for the people in the back!

This is the new matrix I engraved last night. It will cast on an 18 point quad and can be rotated or used as a border. I'll be testing this later and hopefully it will turn out as i envision! #typecasting #engraving #letterpress

a timelapse of #slowbibliography featuring one of its best practitioners.

consider joining me and @bkadams.bsky.social for a conversation about public libraries at #shax2026. if you have an idea and aren't sure whether it fits the remit of the seminar, it probably fits! but feel free to reach out to either of us with questions.

📣 CFP: Shakespeare Quarterly special issue Shakespeare’s Twenty-First Century / The Twenty-First Century’s Shakespeare This will be Vanessa I. Corredera, Arthur L. Little, Jr. and my first issue as Editors! Please submit your finest! More info: networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

it is already the solstice ☀️ & i am just now building a summer reading list of great & good bookish (as in, book historical & bibliographical) things-i-have-not-had-time-to-read-but-am-going-to-create-time-to-read before back-to-school 📚📖 please share your recs for recent articles & chapters ⬇️🙏🏼

add one+ of these titles in the ELEMENTS IN SHAKESPEARE & TEXT series to your summer reading list. they're short! look out for more titles soon—& please get in touch with me or @loughnrv.bsky.social if you have your own idea for an element! we'd love to chat. ℹ️: www.cambridge.org/core/publica...

Love to refuse a prompt. static1.squarespace.com/static/53a4b...

This is what happens when you add a fancy fore edge title, then 150 years later someone realises the book was misbound and moves the last 100 pages to the front. Should look like the first pic, actually looks like the second 🤦

a #herbook inscription for the ages: Elizabeth Pride her Book giuen her by [the?] Lord Larrance / a ugly Lord a rogue a folle of a Lord 🔥🔥🔥 STC 22545 • @folger.edu

Some lovely ampersands here! I think the fourth one, down at the bottom, is my favourite. (And of course, the ampersand′s birth and evolution are covered at Shady Characters: shadycharacters.co.uk/series/the-a...)

four. different. ampersands. !!!! & they all illustrate the origin of the ampersand in the ligature of the latin conjunction “et” (“and”). 222050 • @folger.edu

18c caslon matrices! Teach.Col. 270644 • @folger.edu

Excited to announce a new series from @bloomsburylit.bsky.social - 'Book History for the Future', edited by Lisa Gitelman, Tom Mole and Sarah Werner. Now soliciting proposals, so drop me a line if you're working in the area and interested in learning more!

not of an age, but for all time. PR2752 1768b copy 8 vol 10 • @folger.edu

What emotions is this bee expressing? Drawing on flyleaf of 1623 copy of Butler's bee book. Thanks @theul.bsky.social.

paperscape

What a great seminar, especially now! One of my first encounters with rare books—coming from a family without college degrees & on gvmt welfare—was when I was 10 and I saw the Shakespeare First Folio on display at the Dallas Public Library. I’m now working on a PhD in book history & bibliography.

thanks to @saaupdates.bsky.social for including the SHAKESPEARE & PUBLIC LIBRARIES seminar on the 2026 annual meeting program. & thanks to @bkadams.bsky.social for collaborating with me on making space for this increasingly urgent conversation about the value of public libraries. please sign up!

edward capell, a stickler for bibliographic accuracy—here citing a copy of FOVR PLAYES, OR Morall Representations, IN ONE (in Comedies & Tragedies [1647]) S.b.11 • @folger.edu • catalog.folger.edu/record/224645

Our Shakespeare webinar series with Emma Smith @oldfortunatus.bsky.social continues on 2 June when we will be exploring 'Julius Caesar' with Brandi K. Adams. When: 2 June at 6pm Where: Online via Zoom #Shakespeare #JuliusCaesar #Theatre Please join us! Get your free ticket >>

molly is an outstanding indexer! please consider hiring her if you need your book (monograph OR collection) indexed.

The beta version of the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) datb.cerl.org/estc/ is online. More changes to come over time

three cheers that the beta version of the new ESTC (english short title catalogue) is now online: datb.cerl.org/estc/ thank you to everyone who has been working so hard to make this data accessible again—& to @print-and-prob.bsky.social for the indispensable stop-gap.

Please boost! The NOEL PRIZE, in memory of the great and good and much-missed Will Noel. Celebrate your (or any) open access library project. No project too small, or too big. Full details here, deadline 8/1, extremely low-effort Google Form: pacscl.org/what-we-do/f...

It's that Friday feeling.

Reminder: Anupam Basu's excellent new Element Shakespeare and Scale is available to download for free until April 15th www.cambridge.org/core/element... @roaringgirle.bsky.social

❗️coming in 2026❗️— SHAKESPEARE & TEXTUAL FAILURE: NEW HISTORIES, METHODS, & PRACTICES i am excited to be working with an all-star group of contributors on this essay collection & grateful to @ardenpublisher.bsky.social for supporting this project. stay tuned!

I'll see if I can unpack some of my thinking behind the book later, but for now I'm just excited to have this out. Thanks @roaringgirle.bsky.social and @loughnrv.bsky.social. Also: @cambridgeup.bsky.social

✨📖OUT NOW!📖✨ This new Element by Anupam Basu discusses and demonstrates computational techniques for studying the corpus of early English print at scale. DOWNLOAD NOW* FOR FREE: doi.org/10.1017/9781... *until 04.15.25 cc @loughnrv.bsky.social

Submissions for the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography annual Essay Prize are now open. Essays published in 2023-24 in any field or time period, on texts, images, and artifacts as material objects are eligible. Deadline March 28. rarebookschool.org/sofcb-essay-prize

a manicule pointing to a trefoil! 📖👉☘️♥️ Nicetas Choniates, Nicetae Acominati Choniatae ... Imperii graeci historia, [&c] (1593) • GEN *GC5.W8315.557ab, houghton library

we’re closing out #RenSA2025 with a discussion of bookish milton. please join us at 4:30 pm! thanks to @bibsocamer.bsky.social for sponsoring this panel. ℹ️ rsa.confex.com/rsa/2025/mee...

re-upping this now that most are in situ in boston at #shax2025 and #RenSA2025— please get in touch if you would like to discuss an idea for the ELEMENTS IN SHAKESPEARE & TEXT series with me & @loughnrv.bsky.social! we'd love to talk to you.

Wow, @kimgilchrist.bsky.social! A ‘fragment of a longer cue-script produced for amateur performance’ of *Mucedorus*! Great stuff! academic.oup.com/nq/advance-a...

In the 1790s a London woman named Eliza Denyer developed a modest reputation as a restorer of medieval manuscripts. She was forgotten by scholars and, in one case, her restorations were deliberately replaced by a man’s. I recovered her story & tracked all her known work here: tinyurl.com/2ktztx2e