Shakespeare's First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book

by Emma Smith

Overview

bCelebrating the 400th Anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's First Folio/b

This is the biography of a book: the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays printed in 1623 and known as the First Folio. It begins with the story of its first purchaser in London in December 1623, and goes on to explore the ways people have interacted with this iconic book over the four hundred years of its history. Throughout the stress is on what we can learn from individual copies now spread around the world about their eventful lives. From ink blots to pet paws, from annotations to wineglass rings, First Folios teem with evidence of their place in different contexts with different priorities. This study offers new ways to understand Shakespeare's reception and the history of the book. Unlike previous scholarly investigations of the First Folio, it is not concerned with the discussions of how the book came into being, the provenance of its texts, or the technicalities of its production. Instead, it reanimates, in narrative style, the histories of this book, paying close attention to the details of individual copies now located around the world - their bindings, marginalia, general condition, sales history, and location - to discuss five major themes: owning, reading, decoding, performing, and perfecting. This is a history of the book that consolidated Shakespeare's posthumous reputation: a reception history and a study of interactions between owners, readers, forgers, collectors, actors, scholars, booksellers, and the book through which we understand and recognize Shakespeare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192886644
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/13/2023
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	747,192
Product dimensions:	8.58(w) x 5.87(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Emma Smith, Fellow and Tutor in English, Hertford College, University of Oxford

Emma Smith teaches at Hertford College, Oxford, and has published and lectured widely on Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and on the reception of Shakespeare.

Table of Contents

IntroductionSir Edward Dering goes shopping1. Owning2. Reading3. Decoding4. Performing5. PerfectingConclusionBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Thoroughly researched, and well-organized." — Anna Faktorovich, Pennsylvania Literary Journal

"[An] excellent companion." — Camille Ralphs, Poetry Foundation

"Authoritative, lively and accessible." — Rhodri Lewis, Prospect

From the Publisher

04/25/2016
Shakespeare’s famous First Folio, published in 1623 and now a holy grail for book collectors, is the subject of this cogent “biblio-biography” from Smith (The Making of Shakespeare’s First Folio). Smith dispels the notion of the folio’s rarity: 233 copies were known to exist when Smith wrote her book (a 234th has since been found) and First Folio copies are offered for sale more regularly than many scarcer volumes. She analyzes shifting patterns of ownership, noting that even the very first known sale of the book attested to the purchaser’s wealth. Copies were once exclusively owned by English aristocrats but gradually wound up in the hands of nouveau riche American capitalists, most famously Standard Oil chairman Henry Folger, and Tokyo’s Meisei University, which acquired 12 copies during Japan’s late 20th-century economic boom. In the book’s most engaging chapter, “Reading,” Smith collates the many marginal notations written in copies, pointing out that folio owners saw fit to correct, critique, annotate, and otherwise “improve” upon the Bard’s text, especially in the first century after its publication. Smith condenses a remarkable amount of scholarship into her study, and her writing is lively and insightful. For the millions of book lovers and bardophiles who will never own a copy of the First Folio, this engrossing book will serve as a suitable surrogate. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2016
Smith (English, Hertford Coll., Oxford Univ.; coauthor, 30 Great Myths About Shakespeare) examines the reception of the first collected edition of William Shakespeare's plays (36 in total) as physical object as well as literary text. The first chapter discusses collectors of this work, including Henry Clay Folger (who bought 79 first folios) and Sir George Grey, who gave copies to Cape Colony and Auckland public libraries. Next, the author looks at how early readers annotated their editions, often using the plays as sources for commonplace books and acting as editors to correct real and perceived errors. Further chapters consider the (surprisingly lesser) role of the First Folio in post-1623 editions of Shakespeare and its eccentric use in the theater. The final section explains how most Folios have been "perfected," since many of the some 250 surviving copies have lost pages over the centuries. VERDICT Shakespeareans and historians of the First Folio will find valuable information here about what some have called the most important book in English literature.—Joseph Rosenblum, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro

Library Journal

2016-03-27
A biography of the most valuable English-language book in the world. The famous First Folio of Shakespeare's plays exists thanks to two of the Bard's fellow actors who pulled it all together seven years after his death. Nearly 1,000 pages long, it took two years to print, and when it went on sale, in 1623, it sold for 1 pound; buyers had to bind it themselves. The first printing was a bullish 750 copies. What happened next is what Smith (English/Hertford Coll., Oxford; The Making of Shakespeare's First Folio, 2016, etc.) is most interested in: the book as cultural object. Who bought it, and why, and what did they do with it? Smith has traveled the globe to track down copies in order to write her "biblio-biography," an "attempt to reconstruct the history of one particular book…how that book moved through time, space and, context." Focusing first on the topic of "owning," with its individual, cultural, and national desires, she traces in detail the movements of three specific Folios. After passing through various hands, one ended up in Henry Folger's incredible library/museum (along with 81 others). A second ended up at a Japanese university, and the third went to Oxford's Bodleian Library in 1624, was sold to a collector, and then came back thanks to fundraising efforts. In the "reading" section, Smith analyzes the range of marks and marginalia made early on in the Folios when they were a "real reading text," as well as "early female engagement with the book." "Decoding" is an intriguing look at the intense scholarly scrutiny Folios have generated, including a foray into the possibility of secret codes within textual irregularities. The final two sections deal with the use of Folios in the theater and "perfecting" the Folio: facsimiles, forgeries, and digital reproduction. It's academic, yes, but thoroughly delightful for bibliophiles and Shakespeare lovers. Perfect for the Folger Shakespeare Library's 2016 "First Folio!" tour celebrating the book's 400th anniversary.

Kirkus Reviews