400 Years of Shakespeare’s First Folio: Separating Fact from Fiction

Shakespeare's signature, then the words First Folio, then a line drawing of a portrait of shakespeare. He is bald on top with shoulder length hair, a ruffle collar and a small mustache
October 27, 2023
3:30PM - 5:30PM
150 Thompson Library

Date Range
2023-10-27 15:30:00 2023-10-27 17:30:00 400 Years of Shakespeare’s First Folio: Separating Fact from Fiction Introduction to LecturesIn November of 1623, a new book appeared in London's bookstalls: Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. This celebrated volume of 36 plays offered the only authoritative texts of works like Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Macbeth, as well as alternative versions of other plays that had appeared in print during Shakespeare's lifetime. Yet even as it is one of the most studied books in the world, a number of ahistorical and inaccurate myths about the first folio continue to circulate. 400 years of Shakespeare's First Folio: Separating Fact from Fiction brings world-renowned scholars together in a mini symposium of short, 25-minute papers to correct misapprehensions about the trade and collection of English books. The day will feature Professor Alan Farmer (OSU, English), Professor Tara Lyons (Illinois State University, English), and Dr. Aaron T. Pratt (Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts, Harry Ransom Center, UT Austin).This in-person event will be held in Thompson Library. It is free and open to the public. This event is co-hosted by the Humanities Institute. Risky, Irrational and Unprofitable: Book History Myths about the Publication of the Shakespeare First FolioAlan B. FarmerIt has long been recognized that the Shakespeare First Folio (1623) was an unprecedented publishing venture. Never before had a large collection of plays from the professional London theater been printed together in a single volume, and its large size also meant that it was both expensive for its publishers to produce and expensive for readers to buy. It was a publication that necessarily came with a substantial economic risk if it did not sell well. This possibility of large losses for its publishers has, in fact, often led scholars to characterize the decision to publish the First Folio as “risky” but also as “not a rational economic decision” because there was “no direct evidence that a collection of English plays could make a profit.” In this talk, I challenge this view of the Shakespeare First Folio as a particularly risky publication. When it is looked at within the larger market for expensive folios in the early modern English book trade, the Shakespeare First Folio looks less like a precarious publishing gamble and instead more like an unusually prudent and cautious investment on the part of its publishers. Shakespeare Wasn’t at the Frankfurt Book FairAaron T. PrattIn 1622, a printed list “of all such bookes as have been published…in English” was included as a supplement to the London edition of the Catalogus universalis for that autumn’s book fair in Frankfurt, Germany, the most important in all of Europe. Famously, it advertises “Plays written by Mr. William Shakespeare, all in one volume, printed by Isaac Jaggard, in fol.” The catalog for the spring 1624 fair then promotes the book a second time, describing it as Shakespeare’s “workes, printed for Edward Blount.” Under the assumption that they tell us that First Folios were advertised to European audiences or even—after the second—physically brought to Frankfurt, these two catalog listings have become part of book’s mythology. This presentation will demonstrate, however, they were not. Rather than “suggest that William Shakespeare had gained a reputation beyond the boundaries of England,” I will contend instead that the catalog supplements offer insights into the playwright’s status among domestic book collectors. “Baggage Bookes” and the Shakespeare First FolioTara L. LyonsScholars have long contended that English playbooks, which Sir Thomas Bodley disdainfully called “baggage bookes,” were barred from the University of Oxford Bodleian Library until 1624. It was in this year that the library acquired a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and for the first time, the library opened its doors to English drama. As the story goes, it was Shakespeare’s authorial presence in an elegant folio volume that persuaded the Bodleian to welcome English playwrights and their playbooks onto the shelves. In this talk, I prove that the Bodleian Library never did institute a ban on English playbooks, nor did the arrival of the Shakespeare First Folio have any effect on the library’s accessions policies. I propose instead that the scholarly tendency to aggrandize Shakespeare and his folio has encouraged false narratives to circulate and discouraged a return to primary sources that tell a far different story about the Bodleian and its collection of English plays.Speaker BiosAlan B. Farmer is an associate professor English at the Ohio State University. He is the co-creator, with Zachary Lesser, of DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks, and co-editor, with Adam Zucker, of Localizing Caroline Drama: Politics and Economics of the Early Modern English Stage, 1625–1642 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). He has published extensively on the history and economics of the early modern English book trade and the publication of printed drama. He is currently working on a study of Shakespeare and the popularity of playbooks in Renaissance England, which includes a chapter on Shakespeare’s distinctive place within the London book trade of the 1590s and 1600s. Tara L. Lyons is an associate professor of English at Illinois State University where she teaches courses on Shakespeare, Early Modern Literature, and Publishing Studies. Her scholarship in bibliography and early modern literature has been published in PBSA, ELR, Philological Quarterly, Textual Cultures, and within a number of edited collections, such as the Cambridge Companion to the First Folio. She is currently editing The First Part of the Contention for the Oxford Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe and completing a monograph on collected plays in early modern England. Aaron T. Pratt is Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center, a special collections library, archive, and museum at The University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching focus on bibliography, the history of the book, and the literature and culture of early modern England. His writing has appeared —or will soon appear—in a number of academic and public venues including Fine Books and Collections, Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, The Library, and edited collections published by Oxford and Cambridge. His first major exhibition, The Long Lives of Very Old Books, is open at the Ransom Center through the end of the year.The Humanities Institute and its related centers host a wide range of events, from intense discussions of works in progress to cutting-edge presentations from world-known scholars, artists, activists and everything in between.We value in-person engagement at our events as we strive to amplify the energy in the room. But we also recognize the fact that not all our guests will be able to visit our space. Zoom access will be available to this event upon request. If you wish to have such access, or require any other in-person accommodations, please send your request to Connor Behm: behm.42@osu.edu. 150 Thompson Library America/New_York public

Introduction to Lectures

In November of 1623, a new book appeared in London's bookstalls: Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. This celebrated volume of 36 plays offered the only authoritative texts of works like Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Macbeth, as well as alternative versions of other plays that had appeared in print during Shakespeare's lifetime. Yet even as it is one of the most studied books in the world, a number of ahistorical and inaccurate myths about the first folio continue to circulate. 400 years of Shakespeare's First Folio: Separating Fact from Fiction brings world-renowned scholars together in a mini symposium of short, 25-minute papers to correct misapprehensions about the trade and collection of English books. The day will feature Professor Alan Farmer (OSU, English), Professor Tara Lyons (Illinois State University, English), and Dr. Aaron T. Pratt (Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts, Harry Ransom Center, UT Austin).

This in-person event will be held in Thompson Library. It is free and open to the public. This event is co-hosted by the Humanities Institute. 

Risky, Irrational and Unprofitable: Book History Myths about the Publication of the Shakespeare First Folio

Alan B. Farmer

It has long been recognized that the Shakespeare First Folio (1623) was an unprecedented publishing venture. Never before had a large collection of plays from the professional London theater been printed together in a single volume, and its large size also meant that it was both expensive for its publishers to produce and expensive for readers to buy. It was a publication that necessarily came with a substantial economic risk if it did not sell well. This possibility of large losses for its publishers has, in fact, often led scholars to characterize the decision to publish the First Folio as “risky” but also as “not a rational economic decision” because there was “no direct evidence that a collection of English plays could make a profit.” In this talk, I challenge this view of the Shakespeare First Folio as a particularly risky publication. When it is looked at within the larger market for expensive folios in the early modern English book trade, the Shakespeare First Folio looks less like a precarious publishing gamble and instead more like an unusually prudent and cautious investment on the part of its publishers.

 

Shakespeare Wasn’t at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Aaron T. Pratt

In 1622, a printed list “of all such bookes as have been published…in English” was included as a supplement to the London edition of the Catalogus universalis for that autumn’s book fair in Frankfurt, Germany, the most important in all of Europe. Famously, it advertises “Plays written by Mr. William Shakespeare, all in one volume, printed by Isaac Jaggard, in fol.” The catalog for the spring 1624 fair then promotes the book a second time, describing it as Shakespeare’s “workes, printed for Edward Blount.” Under the assumption that they tell us that First Folios were advertised to European audiences or even—after the second—physically brought to Frankfurt, these two catalog listings have become part of book’s mythology. This presentation will demonstrate, however, they were not. Rather than “suggest that William Shakespeare had gained a reputation beyond the boundaries of England,” I will contend instead that the catalog supplements offer insights into the playwright’s status among domestic book collectors.

 

“Baggage Bookes” and the Shakespeare First Folio

Tara L. Lyons

Scholars have long contended that English playbooks, which Sir Thomas Bodley disdainfully called “baggage bookes,” were barred from the University of Oxford Bodleian Library until 1624. It was in this year that the library acquired a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and for the first time, the library opened its doors to English drama. As the story goes, it was Shakespeare’s authorial presence in an elegant folio volume that persuaded the Bodleian to welcome English playwrights and their playbooks onto the shelves. In this talk, I prove that the Bodleian Library never did institute a ban on English playbooks, nor did the arrival of the Shakespeare First Folio have any effect on the library’s accessions policies. I propose instead that the scholarly tendency to aggrandize Shakespeare and his folio has encouraged false narratives to circulate and discouraged a return to primary sources that tell a far different story about the Bodleian and its collection of English plays.

Speaker Bios

Alan B. Farmer is an associate professor English at the Ohio State University. He is the co-creator, with Zachary Lesser, of DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks, and co-editor, with Adam Zucker, of Localizing Caroline Drama: Politics and Economics of the Early Modern English Stage, 1625–1642 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). He has published extensively on the history and economics of the early modern English book trade and the publication of printed drama. He is currently working on a study of Shakespeare and the popularity of playbooks in Renaissance England, which includes a chapter on Shakespeare’s distinctive place within the London book trade of the 1590s and 1600s.

 

Tara L. Lyons is an associate professor of English at Illinois State University where she teaches courses on Shakespeare, Early Modern Literature, and Publishing Studies. Her scholarship in bibliography and early modern literature has been published in PBSA, ELR, Philological Quarterly, Textual Cultures, and within a number of edited collections, such as the Cambridge Companion to the First Folio. She is currently editing The First Part of the Contention for the Oxford Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe and completing a monograph on collected plays in early modern England.

 

Aaron T. Pratt is Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center, a special collections library, archive, and museum at The University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching focus on bibliography, the history of the book, and the literature and culture of early modern England. His writing has appeared —or will soon appear—in a number of academic and public venues including Fine Books and Collections, Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, The Library, and edited collections published by Oxford and Cambridge. His first major exhibition, The Long Lives of Very Old Books, is open at the Ransom Center through the end of the year.

The Humanities Institute and its related centers host a wide range of events, from intense discussions of works in progress to cutting-edge presentations from world-known scholars, artists, activists and everything in between.

We value in-person engagement at our events as we strive to amplify the energy in the room. But we also recognize the fact that not all our guests will be able to visit our space. Zoom access will be available to this event upon request. If you wish to have such access, or require any other in-person accommodations, please send your request to Connor Behm: behm.42@osu.edu.