Hello! I’m glad you’ve joined us. Today we’ll be experiencing some Shakespeare Shenanigans as we look at the history, impact, and fascinating facts about Shakespeare’s First Folio. Shakespeare has had a few important anniversaries lately. In 2014, we celebrated his 450th birthday. In 2016, we marked the 400th anniversary of his death. And another important year is just around the corner: the initial publication of his collected works.

Fact 1: The First Folio was published in 1623, nearly 400 years ago 

            That’s right. For 400 years, four centuries, Shakespeare’s plays have been making the rounds in our world. And they are still filmed and performed and read and loved and hated and discussed and absolutely present in our lives today.

Fact 2: The real title is Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies. [sic]

            Even though Shakespeare fans and professors and most libraries and bookstores call this collection the First Folio, that’s not really its title. In the 16th century, a folio is a large book made by folding printed sheets of paper in half, with each sheet forming four pages. This format was usually reserved for religious, political or other important subjects. Shakespeare’s First Folio was the first folio ever published in England devoted exclusively to plays.

Fact 3: The First Folio has Interesting Measurements

·      A typical First Folio weighs nearly five pounds.

·      There are more than 500 pages in the First Folio, so it’s about 2 inches thick.

·      Although we don’t know for sure, scholars estimate that about 750 copies of the First Folio were printed in 1623.

Fact 4: One of the reasons the First Folio stands out is that most plays written at the time were not published.

            It’s not really surprising that half of Shakespeare’s plays hadn’t been published seven years after his death. It’s more surprising that his two friends and fellow partners in the King’s Men took on the extraordinary task of collecting up all the old plays that hadn’t been seen in years, gathered them together, and submitted them for publication.

Fact 5: You’ve probably never heard of the people responsible for the First Folio (other than Shakespeare).

            The two members of Shakespeare’s company who spearheaded this whole production are John Heminge and Henry Condell. They were actors and had known and worked with Shakespeare. In fact, Shakespeare left them, along with Richard Burbage, money to buy rings. When Shakespeare died, Burbage, Heminge, and Condell were the three remaining partners in the Globe and King’s Men. Burbage died shortly after Shakespeare, leaving only Heminge and Condell. 

            These men had access to what was left from Shakespeare’s original work. There might have been handwritten copies. There were probably prompt books from productions they had been in. There were printed “quarto” copies, which were cheap, small, unbound works that may or may not have been accurate renderings of the plays performed on stage. Finally, Heminge and Condell had their memories as men who had worked alongside Shakespeare. They were the last ones who could gather the plays. They got to work.

Fact 6: We would be missing about half Shakespeare’s plays without the First Folio.          

            One of the reasons that the First Folio is so important is that only half of Shakespeare’s plays had been printed before its publication. That means that without the First Folio, we might have lost some of Shakespeare’s most famous works. Here are the plays that appear in the First Folio for the first time:

All’s Well that Ends Well

Antony and Cleopatra

As You Like It,

The Comedy of Errors,

Coriolanus

Cymbeline,

Henry VI, part 1

Henry VIII

Julius Caesar

King John

Macbeth

Measure for Measure

The Taming of the Shrew

The Tempest

Timon of Athens

Twelfth Night

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Winter’s Tale

And here are some of the lines we would have lost:

·      Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears.

·      Is this a dagger I see before me?

·      Our revels now are ended

·      Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble

·      All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players

·      Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them

Fact 7: the printing process were complicated, confused, and chaotic.

            Printing a book was very different in the 16th and early 17th century than it is today. William Jaggard and his son Isaac had a successful establishment that boasted two printing presses and up to nine journeymen and apprentices. William Jaggard had gone blind by 1612, so Isaac played a prominent role. While Heminge and Condell rounded up all the copies of Shakespeare’s plays, the Jaggard father and son gathered folio paper and made preparations.

            Type was set one letter at a time—backwards. Compositors, the men who were involved in placing the type, had to estimate how much written text would correspond to the letters on the page, as the book was printed on six sheets at a time. Scholars have identified five different compositors by their different ways of spelling, punctuation, and other printing conventions. For example, one compositor spelled go as “go,” while another spelled it “goe.” Neither was deemed correct or incorrect at the time. Spelling was, shall we say, changeable. But even making accommodation for all the differences in style, one of the compositors has been described as “miserable at it.” 

            Sometimes the compositors would leave little much space for the words they had to print. When that happened, they sometimes left out lines from the play. Since they were only working on a small part, they didn’t know which lines were important. Who knows what might have been lost because there wasn’t enough room for the line?

            Once a page was set, the printing began. There was some effort to check for errors, but even when they were found, pages with the mistakes were not thrown out. With different compositors, different spelling, different punctuation, different errors on pages, there was no uniform way of printing books at this time. Scholars who have reviewed the 200-plus existing First Folios say that no two are exactly alike.   

Fact 8: The First Folio contains things other than Shakespeare’s plays

            In addition to Shakespeare’s plays, the First Folio includes prefatory material by Heminge and Condell. They address their readers specifically, writing “To the great variety of readers: From the most able to him that can but spell: there you are number’d.” In other words, they are reinforcing the notion that Shakespeare was, is, and will continue to be for everyone. His plays drew all levels of society in his time, and still does today. 

            In a timeless plea, they acknowledge that readers are likely to read and possibly object to some of what’s printed, inviting people to “Do so, but buy it first.” They needed sales!

            Ben Jonson’s eulogy of Shakespeare is also included, where Jonson calls Shakespeare “Soul of an age” and “the wonder of our stage”! He goes on to state prophetically that Shakespeare is “not of an age, but for all time.”

            Also included is a Catalogue, or what we call a Table of Contents. For the first time, the plays are arranged by Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Here’s some trivia: The Table of Contents does not include Troilus and Cressida, but the play is included in the text. That’s because Jaggard didn’t have permission from a previous publisher to print Troilus and Cressida when the Catalogue was printed. They kept negotiating, and Jaggard was able to include the text of the play. So if you’re going by the table of contents, you’ll be surprised when you get to Troilus and Cressida!

Fact 9: The First Folio includes one of the most famous images of Shakespeare (although NOT the most flattering!)

            The First Folio also includes one of the two likeliness of Shakespeare that was approved by people who actually knew him. The other is the bust at his grave in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon. The only in the First Folio is an engraving by Martin Droeshout. The engraving was not printed on the same press that printed the text; it might even have been printed by Droeshout himself. This image includes the dramatically receding hairline and hair that comes just over the ear—classic in representations of Shakespeare.

Fact 10: The number of known copies of the First Folio keeps growing.

            Back in 1902, an English writer named Sir Sidney Lee completed a “census” of all the known First Folios in the world. He found 158 copies. Since then, more copies have been discovered. Some were in private collections, and others had been lost or forgotten about. In 2003, almost exactly 100 years later, Anthony James West conducted another census. West, a senior fellow at the University of London, was a successful businessman when he decided that someone needed an updated record of Shakespeare’s First Folio. At age 58, he went to graduate school to become that someone! West found 230 copies of the First Folio. Some had fun stories: one woman was named the only survivor and heir of a relative she’d never heard of. Among the estate was a First Folio of Shakespeare! West discovered another previously unknown copy at the library in Skipton, a mining town in England. It had been mislabeled, shelved in the wrong place and forgotten about.

            With stories like this, it’s no wonder West finished his 2003 census certain that more discoveries were coming.

Fact 11: The First Folio was once part of a live detective story involving the FBI and Scotland Yard!

            One copy of the First Folio has an especially exciting story. It was purchased in the 17th century by John Cosin, who probably bought it new. It’s the only copy known to have remained in the same personal library since its original purchase. Cosin became Bishop of Durham in 1660. Bishop Cosin’s library was opened in 1669 and included the First Folio. In 1998, the library had an exhibition about the progress of English literature. The Durham First Folio and other rare and valuable books were stolen.

            Ten years later, a well-dressed man strolled into the Folger Shakespeare Library holding a book that looked very much like the First Folio. He said he wanted to have it appraised and was possibly interested in selling it. Richard Kuhta and Georgianna Ziegler at the Folger were immediately suspicious. They were certain the book was an original First Folio, but they needed more information to know exactly which copy. The Durham Folio had several distinguishing marks, and the mystery book might be a match. Famous rare-book appraiser Stephen C. Massey was able to confirm the book definitely matched the markers of the Durham First Folio. The FBI, Scotland Yard, and the Durham Constabulary all got involved.

            The Durham library staff were extremely grateful for the return of their volume. Sadly, it had been damaged—probably intentionally in an attempt to disguise its origin. But even so, the book is back where it belongs. 

Fact 12: There have been recent discoveries of First Folio 

            Previously unknown copies of the First Folio continue to pop up from time to time. In 2014, Remy Cordonnier was searching for books to include in an upcoming exhibition in France. At the St. Omer library, he came across an old volume that he described as well used and damaged. It was some kind of Shakespeare collection. He contacted Professor Eric Rasmussen, who examined the book. He quickly identified it as a First Folio.

            The exact path the book took from London to a small library in a provincial French town is unknown. Scholars think that the book might have traveled with a Catholic priest fleeing England. Then it joined the collection at the public library at St. Omer and was tucked away and forgotten for hundreds of years. Now it joins the Gutenberg Bible as the most famous books in the small-town library

            During the 2016 celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, another First Folio was found and authenticated. This time it was on an island off the Scottish coast near Glasgow. The First Folio was discovered at the library at Mount Stuart, a manor on the Isle of Bute. Alice Martin, the head of collections for the Mount Stuart House Trust, discovered the book while cataloguing. She thinks the volume once belonged to 18th-century editor Isaac Reed, and after its authentication it was displayed in Mount Stuart’s library. 

            Folger Shakespeare Library puts the number of known copies of the First Folio at 235. The largest collection is at the Folger, which holds 82 copies.

Fact 13: Copies of the First Folio traveled around the country in 2016.

            In 2016, Folger Shakespeare Library, in partnership with the Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, sent a copy of the First Folio to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The folio exhibition was hosted by 23 museums, 20 universities, five public libraries, three historical societies, and a theatre.

Fact 14: Although it is very important, the First Folio is not considered a rare book.

            With 235 known copies in existence, the First Folio is not a rare book. However, it is an extraordinarily important book. Many things make the First Folio important, but one of the most fun is to imagine what phrases we might not have without Shakespeare’s plays. Although he might not have invented as many words as we once thought, the lasting popularity of his plays brought these phrases into our language:

·      Neither rhyme nor reason

·      Break the ice

·      It’s high time

·      An eye sore

·      I have not slept one wink

·      What’s done is done

·      For goodness sake

·      Puking (now what would we do without that word??)

·      Elbow room

·      Too much of a good thing

            And, hoping we’re not making too much of a good thing, there’s another thing we get from Shakespeare and specifically from the First Folio: knock knock jokes. The first knock knock jokes are found in Macbeth.

Fact 15: The First Folio contains characters and stories and language that continue to shape our lives today.

            During the late 16th and early 17th centuries, while Shakespeare was writing his plays, the English language was undergoing many changes. Words were coming in from Greek and Roman texts, as well as words from other languages, came into the language. Exploration of the new world and new discoveries in science and astrology led to new ideas and new objects—all needing to be put into words. Shakespeare and other writers were adopting new words and creating new words to describe the changing world. These words were written into the plays, performed over years, and coming into our language. 

            Thank you for joining me to watch the First Folio capture and preserve the words with which Shakespeare re-created the world. Join us next time when we meet one of the most controversial and experienced royal consorts: Eleanor of Aquitaine!