Shakespeare's Book
The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare
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The never-before-told story of how the makers of The First Folio created Shakespeare as we know him today.
2023 marks the 400-year anniversary of the publication of Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known today simply as the First Folio. It is difficult to imagine a world without The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, and Macbeth, but these are just some of the plays that were only preserved thanks to the astounding labor of love that was the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays.
When the First Folio hit the bookstalls in 1623, nearly eight years after the dramatist’s death, it provided eighteen previously unpublished plays, and significantly revised versions of close to a dozen other dramatic works, many of which may not have survived without the efforts of those who backed, financed, curated, and crafted what is arguably one of the most important conservation projects in literary history.
Without the First Folio Shakespeare is unlikely to have acquired the towering international stature he now enjoys across the arts, the pedagogical arena, and popular culture. Its lasting impact on English national heritage, as well as its circulation across cultures, languages, and media, makes the First Folio the world’s most influential secular book. But who were the personalities behind the project and did Shakespeare himself play a role in its inception
Shakespeare’s Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare charts, for the first time, the manufacture of the First Folio against a turbulent backdrop of seismic political events and international tensions which intersected with the lives of its creators and which left their indelible marks on this ambitious publication-project. This story uncovers the friendships, bonds, social ties, and professional networks that facilitated the production of Shakespeare’s book—as well as the personal challenges, tragedies and dangers that threw obstacles in the path of its chief backers.
It reveals how Shakespeare himself, before his death, may have influenced the ways in which his own public identity would come to be enshrined in the First Folio, shaping his legacy to future generations and determining how the world would remember him: "not of an age, but for all time."
Shakespeare’s Book tells the true story of how the makers of the First Folio created “Shakespeare” as we know him today.
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Shakespeare scholar Laoutaris (Shakespeare and the Countess) details in this meticulous history the making of the Bard of Avon's First Folio, which was posthumously published in 1623, seven years after his death. Crediting the folio with securing Shakespeare's legacy and preserving such previously unpublished plays as Macbeth and Twelfth Night, Laoutaris examines the key figures and "symbiotic effort" that brought the ambitious and financially risky volume to market. Primary among the people were John Heminges and Henry Condell, theater managers and close associates of the playwright. The author also delves into complications caused by booksellers who resisted giving up their printing rights to such previously published plays as The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet, as well as the contributions of compositors, who sometimes cut entire lines in the interest of space while arranging pages for printing (Friar Francis's "Here comes the Prince and Claudio" was excised from Much Ado About Nothing). Laoutaris also studies how King James I's plan to resolve political tensions between Britain and Spain by marrying his son to a Spanish princess influenced the folio, most notably in the decision to open with The Tempest, which depicts "conflict resolution through dynastic marriage." The scrupulous detail impresses, even as accounts of legal wrangling over printing rights sometimes drag. Nonetheless, this is a valuable addition to Shakespeare studies. Photos.
