The Millionaire and the Bard
Henry Folger's Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare's First Folio
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
The miraculous and romantic story of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and of the American industrialist whose thrilling pursuit of the book became a lifelong obsession: “Mays’s narrative is so fast-moving, and peppered with such fascinating detail, it almost reads like a thriller” (Entertainment Weekly, Grade: A).
When Shakespeare died in 1616, half of his plays died with him. No one—not even their author—believed that his writings would last. In 1623, seven years after his death, Shakespeare’s business partners, companions, and fellow actors gathered copies of his plays and manuscripts and published thirty-six of them. This massive book, the First Folio, was intended as a memorial to their deceased friend. They could not have known that it would become one of the most important books ever published in the English language.
Over two and a half centuries later, a young man fresh out of law school, Henry Folger, bought a book at auction—a later, 1685 edition Fourth Folio, for $107.50. It was the beginning of an obsession that would consume the rest of his life. Folger rose to be president of Standard Oil, and he used his fortune to create the greatest Shakespeare collection in the world. By the time he died, Folger owned more First Folios than anyone and had founded the Folger Shakespeare Library, where his collection still resides.
In The Millionaire and the Bard, Andrea Mays spins the tale of Shakespeare and of his collector, of the genius whose work we nearly lost, the men who had the foresight to preserve it, and the millionaire who, centuries later, was consumed by his obsession with it. “Effortless in its unadorned storytelling and exacting in its research, this is a page-turning detective story” (Publishers Weekly).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Economist Mays's debut is effortless in its unadorned storytelling and exacting in its research, recounting the lives of William Shakespeare and his most devoted collector, Henry Clay Folger (1857 1930). Shakespeare's First Folio, "the book of man on earth," is the most expensive book in the world, and for Folger, president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York, the source of an obsession that extended beyond his life the Folger Shakespeare Library opened two years after his death. Folger's untiring intellectual pursuit speaks to both the resounding importance of Shakespeare's work and the mores of Folger's Gilded Age era, which prized the ambition that led Americans to become self-made millionaires. The book is evocative in its characterizations of both the deified bard and dedicated bibliophile, finding its structure in the parallels between these two ambitious yet mysterious men. While the details of Folger's travails to find the First Folio can sometimes weigh heavily on the long narrative, the page-turning detective story winding through dusty library shelves and behind the closed doors of antiquarian trading speaks to anyone with a love of literary history. Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment.