Shakespeare’s First Folio: Created, Valued, Stolen and Recovered

Description

A few years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, two of his close friends decided to put together a collection of all of his plays. An estimated 750 original copies of the collection were published in 1623, and became known as the First Folio. Without this collaboration eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays would have been lost, including Macbeth and The Tempest. By the nineteenth century there was great interest in collecting First Folios. Philanthropist Henry Clay Folger was able to secure over eighty. Some First Folios have been stolen from libraries and sometimes recovered in remarkable ways. Levin discusses the richness of the First Folio, how some have been discovered and recovered.