Locations of Shakespeare's First Folios

After William Shakespeare's passing in 1616, some members of his acting troupe The Kings Men collected his plays and brought them to the publishers Edwin Blount and Issac Jaggard, who set to work making the book that would come to be known as the "First Folio". The books were first published in 1623 as "Mr. William Shakespare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies" and contain 36 of the 37 plays that he wrote during his lifetime (but omit all of his poems). It is called the ''First Folio'' because, although various plays of Shakespare's had been published in smaller books called "quartos" earlier, this was the first book to collect his plays and publish them in the folio format. The term folio refers to the large size of paper on which the book was printed; this type of paper was usually reserved for important documents, such as those of a theological, historical or regal nature, which alludes to the high level of prestige placed on his works. Researchers believe that around 750 copies were first published and of these, around 233 are known to still be around today.

Significance of the First Folio

One of the reasons why the First Folio is so revered is because 18 of Shakespeare's plays were first published in this book. So, without the first folio, plays such as Macbeth, Julius Caesar and The Tempest may have never been published at all! The Folio was collated by two of Shakespeare's friends and fellow actors John Heminge and Henry Condell, who appear in a list of the ''Principall Actors'' who performed plays alongside the Bard himself. It was Heminge and Condell that divided his plays into comedies, histories and tragedies, an editorial decision that has come to shape public perception of the Shakespearean canon. They put the text together from previously published quarto editions and various other manuscripts (that are now lost) in order to produce as authoritative a text as possible. The First Folio also offers a corrective to what are now called bad quarto's, which were pirate editions that are most likely based on memorial reconstruction. Finally, the portrait of Shakespeare that was published on the title page was engraved by Martin Droeshout, and is the one of just two images with any authentic claim to Shakespeare's likeness.

Modern settings

After leaving the printing shop of Issac Jaggard in the Barbican in the autumn of 1623, the Shakespeare First Folios have found their way to all corners of the globe, although almost a third of all known copies have ended up in one place: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. The Folger library has collected 82 copies of the First Folio, thanks to the centripetal collecting force of Henry Clay Folger; a leading figure in the US oil industry around the turn of the twentieth century and an avid collector of Shakespearean paraphernalia (or "Shakespeareanea"). The largest collection outside of the Folger Library can be found in Meisei University in Tokyo, which is home to twelve copies. The majority of the existing First Folios are owned or housed either in Universities or in other academic libraries, while only a few of them (around 20) are still held by private owners in their homes or in private estates.