An Annotated Catalogue of the Music Manuscripts in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C

We owe a great debt of gratitude to many American industrialists. Having acquired fine libraries, many of them ensured that in due time their collections were made available to scholars at large. One was Henry Clay Folger (1857–1930), not forgetting his wife Emily (1858–1936), whose collection became the Folger Shakespeare Library, opened in 1932. This has continued to acquire materials, and only a third of the current holdings formed part of the original bequest. Its holdings are much wider in scope than the ‘Shakespeare’ in the title would suggest, for although it does indeed house a unique collection of Shakespeariana produced over the last 400 years, there is also a particularly fine assemblage of early English printed books. For many years Richard Charteris has scoured the world’s libraries seeking out unknown or neglected music manuscripts, and our debt to him in this regard is immense. The Folger Shakespeare Library has been part of his trail since the 1970s, and he has gradually worked on cataloguing the music manuscripts there. He begins his Preface with the statement that ‘A complete catalogue of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s music manuscripts has not been available until now’ and continues: ‘The great bulk of [them] have hitherto escaped examination, and many compositions are not recorded in relevant work lists in New Grove II Online.’

Art · Bequest · Wife · Classics · History · Law · Literature Analysis and Criticism · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · Theater, Performance, and Music History

• Manuscript Publishing in the Commonwealth Period

  Alexandra Howard•Music and Letters•2009

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