Shakespeare’s First Folio 1623-2023

This wide-ranging collection reflects on the various motivations that caused the Folio to come into being in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, and on how the now iconic book has been continually reimagined after its initial publication to the present day.

In honour of its original publication, Shakespeare’s First Folio 1623-2023: Text and Afterlives brings together a remarkable set of ground-breaking essays by an international group of scholars. From the beginning, the publication that came to be called the ‘First Folio’ was defined by the tension between the book as text and the book as a material object.

In this volume, the individual contributions move between these two meanings in that they consider precursors to the First Folio in the form of reader-assembled volumes; the poetic identity of Shakespeare; and how misfortunes and successes in the early modern printing house shaped Shakespeare’s text.

Chapters examine the unpredictable and often surprising subsequent histories of the book that has even been given a sacred status and become the basis of Shakespeare’s unique position in the history of literature. They consider: the afterlife of the text in relation to the reception of Shakespeare’s First Folio in Spain; its presence in and influence on James Joyce’s Ulysses; the role that Meisei University of Japan’s Shakespeare Collection has played in the education and research of the institution; and what the collection of 82 copies at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, tells us about the ongoing role of these books within the study of Shakespeare and the early modern period.