![]() Ībove, the Reader’s Preface, by one of Shakespeare’s friends, Ben Jonson, and title page of the First Folio with what is perhaps the best known portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout. This book is significant not only because it is the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays, but also because without it, plays like Macbeth, my personal favorite, or The Tempest, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and Anthony and Cleopatra would have remained unknown to us. This was an unusual size for a book of plays in 1623, the time of publication, when large sizes were used primarily for scholarly works. This book is made up of large sheets of paper known as folio, for their size. What exactly do we mean when we refer to the collected plays of Shakespeare as the First Folio? In this case, the first folio refers to the first publication of Shakespeare’s collected plays in a large size. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, published in 1623. To celebrate the 400 th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, we will look at the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays, commonly referred to as the First Folio, rather than its actual title: Mr. He had a gift for exploring and explaining and relating the day to day life that sheds light on our humanity, summing it up so succinctly with this line from his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “What fools these mortals be.” What we do know is that we like reading Shakespeare. But even his literary accomplishments are a little cloudy, as debates still arise as to the authorship of some plays believed by scholars and readers alike to be the work of other 17 th century playwrights. Without a doubt there is also the widespread recognition of his literary genius and the impact his plays and poetry have made on generations of devoted readers. His marriage to Anne Hathaway, his children and his theatrical home, the Globe Theatre in London, are known certainties. Little is known about Shakespeare’s life either. So, give or take a few days, we’ve settled on the 23 rd. What we do know is that he was buried on April 25, 1616, and like today, it would have been customary for a couple of days to pass after the death to make arrangements for the funeral services. While the actual date of his death escaped documentation, it is believed he died on April 23, but there again, no one is quite sure. You see, there’s a bit of a mystery surrounding Shakespeare’s birth and death, though both occasions are believed to be on the same day. Blog post by Stewart Plein, Rare Book Librarian.įour hundred years ago, on April 23, 1616, or thereabouts, Shakespeare died at the young age of 52.
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