The First Folio

The first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays is a celebrated volume known as the "First Folio." It is called a “Folio” because of the large-format size of the book. The First Folio earned its iconic status in part because it contains the plays of an author widely regarded as the world’s greatest playwright and because it is the first edition and sole source for half of those plays. Without the First Folio, we might not have such plays as Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Tempest. The First Folio also holds the Droeshout portrait, one of only two portraits unambiguously identified as Shakespeare. This well-known portrait is the iconic image of Shakespeare that appears on the title page of the First Folio.

Shakespeare was not the first author to have his collected works published in folio format. His contemporaries—poets and playwrights Samuel Daniel (1601), Edmund Spenser (1609), and Ben Jonson (1616)—also had literary folios published. But, setting him apart as the foremost playwright of his day, Shakespeare’s literary “First Folio” charted new ground in being composed entirely of plays. Since its publication in 1623, the book has gained cultural significance, becoming synonymous with Shakespeare himself.

The title page in the above image is from a First Folio in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library. It is the most important of the Folger's 82 copies, in that it is a presentation copy given posthumously from the book's printer, William Jaggard, to Augustine Vincent, an author with whom Jaggard had worked the previous year. It is inscribed "Ex dono Willi Jaggard Typographi. Ao. 1623" in the hand of the recipient, Augustine Vincent, author of A discouerie of errours (London: William Jaggard, 1622). Its provenance links the copy directly to the printing house.