Shakespeare's First Folio
Shakespeare's First Folio

Author: Emma Smith

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-03-24

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0191069280

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This is a 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 its 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 recognise Shakespeare.

The Making of Shakespeare's First Folio
The Making of Shakespeare's First Folio

Author: Emma Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2023-04-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781851245987

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A revised and updated edition of Shakespeare's First Folio that explains the significance of the iconic publication. The Making of Shakespeare's First Folio offers the first comprehensive biography of the earliest collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. In November 1623, the book arrived in the bookshop of the London publisher Edward Blount at the Black Bear. Long in the making, Master William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies--as the First Folio was then known--appeared seven years after Shakespeare's death. Nearly one thousand pages in length, the collection comprised thirty-six plays, half of which had never been previously published. Yet no fanfare surrounded the initial publication of Shakespeare's First Folio--no queue of eager readers, no launch to the top of the best-seller list. Nevertheless, it is hard to overstate the importance of this literary, cultural, and commercial moment. Emma Smith tells the story of the First Folio's origins, locating it within the social and political context of Jacobean London and bringing in the latest scholarship on the seventeenth-century book trade. Generously illustrated in color with key pages from the publication and comparative works, this new edition combines the 2016 discovery of a hitherto unknown edition of the First Folio at Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute with the human, artistic, economic and technical stories of the birth of this landmark publication--and the birth of Shakespeare's towering reputation.

Collecting Shakespeare
Collecting Shakespeare

Author: Stephen H. Grant

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2014-04-26

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1421411873

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The first biography of Henry and Emily Folger, who acquired the largest and finest collection of Shakespeare in the world. In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger. Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted associate of John D. Rockefeller Sr. While a number of American universities offered to house the collection, the Folgers wanted to give it to the American people. Afraid the price of antiquarian books would soar if their names were revealed, they secretly acquired prime real estate on Capitol Hill near the Library of Congress. They commissioned the design and construction of an elegant building with a reading room, public exhibition hall, and the Elizabethan Theatre. The Folger Shakespeare Library was dedicated on the Bard's birthday on April 23, 1932. The library houses 82 First Folios, 277,000 books, and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in Washington, DC, for cultural programs, including theater, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings. With unprecedented access to the primary sources within the Folger vault, Grant draws on interviews with surviving Folger relatives and visits to 35 related archives in the United States and in Britain to create a portrait of the remarkable couple who ensured that Shakespeare would have a beautiful home in America.

Shakespeare's First Folio: 400th Anniversary Facsimile Edition
Shakespeare's First Folio: 400th Anniversary Facsimile Edition

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Rizzoli Publications

Published: 2023-10-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 084787382X

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A full-size facsimile of one of the most complete early copies of the famed First Folio, selected and luxuriously produced by the British Library, is a must-have for actors, playwrights, and bibliophiles as well as anyone who truly loves the art of the English language. Published in association with the British Library on the 400th anniversary of the first publication of the First Folio, this handsome facsimile edition is the clearest and cleanest expression of an original from the library’s collection. The slipcased edition includes an six-page booklet with an introduction by the British Library’s lead curator who explain the history and enduring significance of the First Folio. First printed in 1623, the First Folio presents thirty-six of Shakespeare’s plays in one volume and is the only source for eighteen of his plays. Without it, works such as The Tempest, Twelfth Night and Macbeth would be lost. Also, the First Folio introduced the now familiar organization into comedies, histories, and tragedies. Of the 750 copies originally produced, only some 200 remain today. Interestingly, no two copies are identical and few surviving First Folios are complete. One work, Troilus and Cressida, appears in some copies but not others. Printing stopped and started due to finances, so corrections were made throughout the print run. Small changes were also made to Martin Droeshout’s (now iconic) Shakespeare portrait on the title page.

Shakespeare's Bawdy
Shakespeare's Bawdy

Author: Eric Partridge

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-08

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1134522096

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This classic work sold with continued success in its original format This new edition will attract review coverage and is appearing in the Autumn Partridge Promotion Foreword by Stanley Wells - General editor of `Oxford Shakespeare'

William Shakespeare Complete Works Second Edition
William Shakespeare Complete Works Second Edition

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 2532

ISBN-13: 0593230329

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The newly revised, wonderfully authoritative First Folio of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, edited by acclaimed Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen and endorsed by the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company Combining cutting-edge textual editing, superb annotations and commentary, a readable design, and bonus features for students, theater professionals, and general readers, this landmark edition sets a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century and features 48 pages of new material. Edited by a brilliant team of “younger generation” Shakespearean scholars from the First Folio originally assembled by Shakespeare’s own acting company, this edition of the “Complete Works” corrects centuries of errors and textual variations that have evolved since the book’s publication in 1623, and includes modern glossaries designed for twenty-first-century readers and new editorial stage directions clearly distinguished from Folio directions.

Shakespeare in Ten Acts
Shakespeare in Ten Acts

Author: Gordon McMullan

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780712356312

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Ten leading experts take a fresh look at Shakespeare, reminding us that the playwright's iconic status has been constructed over the centuries in a process that continues across the world today.

100 Books that Changed the World
100 Books that Changed the World

Author: Scott Christianson

Publisher: Batsford Books

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 1849945160

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A thought-provoking chronological journey through the world's most influential books. Many books have become classics, must-reads or overnight publishing sensations, but how many can genuinely claim to have changed the way we see and think? In 100 Books that Changed the World, authors Scott Christianson and Colin Salter bring together an exceptional collection of truly groundbreaking books – from scriptures that founded religions, to scientific treatises that challenged beliefs, to novels that kick-started literary genres. This elegantly designed book, first published in 2018 but updated with an exciting new cover, offers a chronological timeline of three millennia of human thought distilled in print, from the earliest illuminated manuscripts to the age of ebooks and audiobooks. Entries include: • The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (750 BC) • Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) • The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank (1947) • Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958) • A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (1988) For literary lovers and rebellious readers, this book offers a fascinating overview of world history through the books that influenced and changed it.

Presenting Shakespeare
Presenting Shakespeare

Author: Mirko Ilic

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press

Published: 2015-10-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781616892920

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A skull held aloft, a lovesick donkey, a bloodied dagger—these familiar icons are instantly recognizable shorthand for the plays of William Shakespeare. In the four hundred years since his death, the Bard of Avon's exalted place in the pantheon of theater and poetry—indeed, all of Western culture—is unequaled. As Ben Jonson proclaimed, Shakespeare "is not of an age but for all time!" And just as centuries of theatrical artists have reimagined his works through the lens of their own time and culture, so too have illustrators and designers been inspired to create posters that reinvent Shakespeare's well-known themes for each new generation of theatergoers. Presenting Shakespeare collects 1,100 posters for Shakespeare's plays, designed by an international roster of artists representing 55 countries, from Japan to Colombia, India, Russia, Australia, and beyond. A fascinating trove of theatrical artifacts, Presenting Shakespeare is a necessary volume for theater and design lovers alike.