13 Things Writers May Not Know About Shakespeare’s First Folio
When the First Folio was published 400 years ago, few could have predicted that it would become one of the most famous books in the English language. Copies sell for millions of dollars at auctions, and literary scholars pore over them for clues about the text, the making of the book, and the man it celebrates: William Shakespeare.
(Why Writers Should Hang Out With Shakespeare.)
Here are 13 things writers may not know about this mighty book.
It was a first in more ways than one. The First Folio was the first volume ever exclusively devoted to a collection of theatrical plays. Previously, dramatic works had been considered less literary, more ephemeral, and unworthy of committing to paper. That changed in 1623. Just a few years earlier, in 1616, Ben Jonson had been roundly teased for daring to include his own plays in a collection known simply as his Workes. One critic scolded: “Pray tell me Ben, where doth the mystery lurke/What others call a play you call a worke.”The Bard never saw it. Shakespeare had nothing to do with the publication of the First Folio. He’d been dead for seven years by the time of its release. Instead, colleagues and allies of the esteemed playwright are credited with assembling the collection in his honor.Intellectual property? Ha! Playwrights didn’t own the rights to their plays during Shakespeare’s day; the theaters that commissioned them did. Sometimes these companies generated additional income by allowing printers to reproduce the text of a single play. If you’ve heard of Shakespeare’s quartos, then you’re familiar with these pocket-sized renditions.Don’t fret about those bad quartos. Prior to the publication of the First Folio, only 18 of Shakespeare’s plays had ever been printed. For decades, literary scholars had categorized these quarto editions as either “good” or “bad” versions of the Bard’s works, but now many view them as merely different, as in shorter versions for simpler productions, etc.Would Shakespeare be Shakespeare without the Scottish play? How’s your math? If only 18 of Shakespeare’s plays had ever been printed, what does that signify for the rest of the Bard’s work for the stage? Quite simply, it could have become lost and forgotten. As many as 36 plays comprise the First Folio, which means it helped to save half of the works of William Shakespeare from oblivion. What escaped the dustbin? For starters, try Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors, and The Tempest. Yikes!Keyboards have more in common with the 17th century than you’d think. It took nearly two years to collect texts, typeset them, and print the 900-plus pages of this large, Folio-sized volume. Each letter of every word was typeset by hand using backwards-facing lead letters that were organized in a set of stacked cases. Capital letters—known then as majuscule letters—were stored in the upper case; miniscule letters were kept in the lower one. Sound familiar?Typos tell stories too. In the past century or so, scholars have studied small variations in typesetting within and between copies of the First Folio to determine that as many as nine people, including an apprentice named James Leason, composed the type used to print the book. They were able to distinguish Leason’s work from the others because it had so many more mistakes. Leason is credited with composing Romeo and Juliet and Othello, among other works.In publishing, it’s better late than never. The First Folio wasn’t called the First Folio when it was published in 1623, of course. It was called: Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, Published according to the True Originall Copies. Most copies included 14 comedies, 10 history plays, and 11 tragedies, but some held a bonus: Troilus and Cressida. Scholars speculate that rights for this tragedy must have become available after printing had already begun, but when possible it was inserted following Romeo and Juliet. The most conspicuously absent play from the collection is Pericles. Again, the assumption is that its rights were controlled by a different printer who chose not to collaborate on the 1623 collection.New copies of the old book keep showing up. Scholars estimate that approximately 750 copies were printed of the First Folio. At least 235 are known to have survived. Most are held at institutions; the British royal family owns one of the 27 that are understood to remain in private hands. New copies keep coming to light, including, most recently, in 2016 at a private estate on a Scottish island, so prepare to keep counting.This book had legs. The Folger Shakespeare Library owns an astonishing 82 copies of the First Folio, far more than any other site, thanks to the collecting persistence of its founders, Henry and Emily Folger. Meisei University in Japan comes next, with 10 copies. Five of the seven continents are home to a First Folio. Don’t plan to read one in Antarctica or South America.The scent of history can be brutal. Because of the nature of printing, book binding, and book ownership, each copy of the First Folio has distinguishing characteristics, and they have developed unique personas. Some copies are named for owners, like the Vincent Folio which was presented by the publisher to Augustine Vincent in 1623. It’s the tallest surviving copy of the edition. Others are named for particular characteristics—like the so-called Farting Folio, an odiferous book also known as the Barton Folio, housed now at the Boston Public Library. Or there’s the Golden Retriever copy which belonged to Dudley Coutts Majoribanks, the man credited with developing this dog breed.Books live a dangerous life. What happened to the rest of the copies? Some were lost to the usual elements of time, water, and fire, including in the Great Fire of London in 1666. This conflagration took a particularly harsh toll on the Third Folio (yes, there were more editions—four, in fact—which explains why the 1623 volume is called the First Folio). Other copies were nibbled by mice, discarded as obsolete after the Second Folio showed up, or taken apart and repurposed to fill in gaps with other copies or, who knows, stop up drafty cracks under doors.Newer is not always better. The First Folio remains the most coveted of the four editions. It is considered the most accurate collection of Shakespeare’s plays because it was produced by people who knew the playwright, had performed his works during his lifetime, and had the best access to source materials for their edition. Later editions included plays no longer attributed to Shakespeare—such as A Yorkshire Tragedy—and introduced typographical and other errors that have kept scholars employed for centuries.
Meanwhile, thanks to the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare have been preserved, performed, loathed, and LOVED for 400 years and counting.
Check out Ann Bausum’s The Bard and the Book here:
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