11/21/2023 0 Comments Shakespeare first folio portraitIt was not at all common for playwrights to publish their works at the time, especially in the expensive folio format. ![]() It was also the first book to divide Shakespeare’s works by genre: comedies, histories, and tragedies.īut Houghton also connects its status “to its cultural value, the sense that this is an emblem of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is at the center of English literary heritage.”īecause the folio was published seven years after Shakespeare’s death, it’s not known whether he would have wanted the plays to be published or if he worked on the project at all. The table of contents from a later edition of the folio contains notable Shakespeare works, including “The Tempest,” “Macbeth,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” (Photo provided by Eve Houghton) Why, then, is it considered so valuable? A primary reason is that it preserved “The Tempest,” “Macbeth,” “As You Like It,” and many other plays considered to be “absolutely essential to the Shakespeare canon,” Houghton said. Yale’s Beinecke Library has a copy in its collection as well. More than 200 copies are known to have survived, according to the Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington, D.C., which has 82 copies. Somewhat surprisingly, the First Folio’s extraordinary worth today - one sold at auction for just under $10 million several years ago - is not related to scarcity. In fact, she noted, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University rather famously sold off their First Folio in 1664 after acquiring a copy of the Third Folio, which contained additional plays attributed to Shakespeare. “It might seem surprising to us, but in the late 17th century, these later folios were the ones people wanted.” ![]() “That speaks to the desire to expand the Shakespeare canon, to get people to buy more books by presenting more ‘content,’ as we might think of it now,” Houghton said. By the Fourth Folio, the publishers were including plays that weren’t even written by Shakespeare. In fact, the creators published three later editions of the folio - in 1632, 1663, and 1685. “Caring about it is basically a 20 th-century thing.” “In the 17 th century, no one really cared about the First Folio,” she said. Curated by Houghton and displayed in the library’s new Hanke Exhibition Gallery, the exhibit is centered around an original copy of the folio - with the famous engraved portrait of Shakespeare on the frontispiece - on loan from the Elizabethan Club of Yale University.Ī librarian for the club, Houghton combed the rare book collection kept in the club’s 1911 bank vault for materials that would complement the First Folio and present it in a broader context, one that seeks to explain the changing perceptions of its value and the growth in its prestige over time. The preface pitch is one of many interesting facets of the First Folio highlighted in a new exhibit in the Sterling Memorial Library celebrating the 400th anniversary of its publication. The Folio now on display in the Hanke Exhibition Gallery belongs to the Elizabethan Club of Yale University.Copies of the First Folio are not rare - more than 200 are known to exist.The Folio’s engraved portrait of Shakespeare is thought to be one of the most authentic likenesses of the playwright.It was the first book to divide Shakespeare’s plays by genre: comedies, histories and tragedies.The Folio, published in 1623, preserved 18 of Shakespeare’s plays that had never been printed before.“And in a way, that has continued to bolster the First Folio’s reputation today.” candidate in the Yale Department of English. “There’s this effort to treat the First Folio as the best possible text,” said Eve Houghton, a Ph.D. In their preface to the publication, the creators, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two actors in Shakespeare’s company, claimed that these works were the most perfect and complete versions, while readers had previously been “abused with diverse stolen and surreptitious copies” of the plays, copies that were “maimed” and “deformed.” With a convincing sales pitch, of course. ![]() How could its publishers persuade Shakespeare fans to spend substantially more for the whole collection in a larger format? But the other half of the collection was already available in print in less-expensive quarto formats (much like pamphlets) that could be purchased individually. Half of the Shakespeare First Folio comprised 18 plays that had never been printed before. And in a way, that has continued to bolster the First Folio’s reputation. There’s this effort to treat the First Folio as the best possible text. ![]() The publishers of the first printed collection of Shakespeare’s plays had to come up with a sales marketing strategy - or what passed for one in 1623.
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