First Folio

First Folio
William Shakespeare · Public domain · source
Name	First Folio
Caption	Title page of the 1623 collection
Author	William Shakespeare; editors: John Heminge, Henry Condell
Country	England
Language	Early Modern English
Subject	Plays
Publisher	Edward Blount and William and Isaac Jaggard
Pub date	1623
Media type	Print (folio)

First Folio The 1623 folio collection assembled by John Heminge and Henry Condell preserves a corpus of plays attributed to William Shakespeare and served as a foundational text for modern study of English drama, English Renaissance theatre, St Paul's Cathedral, Stratford-upon-Avon, Globe Theatre. Its editors and publishers connected the work to contemporaries such as Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, John Webster and patrons like Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and institutions including the King's Men and the Master of the Revels.

Background and compilation

The folio emerged after the deaths of William Shakespeare and commentators like Ben Jonson prompted actors and colleagues to secure a durable record; its compilers, actors John Heminges and Henry Condell, drew on theatrical practice at venues such as the Globe Theatre, Blackfriars Theatre, and collections associated with Philip Henslowe and the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Financial and legal contexts involved printers and merchants including Edward Blount, William Jaggard, Isaac Jaggard, and connections to the Stationers' Company. Sources for the plays likely comprised promptbooks, actors' memory, playwrights' papers, and earlier quartos associated with printers like Nicholas Ling and Thomas Pavier, while editorial decisions reflect contemporary performance conventions seen in works by Christopher Marlowe, John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, and Robert Greene.

Publication and printing

Carried out between 1620 and 1623, the printing project was organized by publishers Edward Blount and the Jaggard family, printed in London amid the commercial print culture of Fleet Street and the London publishing trade. The composite imprint and typographic choices show the influence of printers such as William Jaggard and compositors trained in workshops associated with printing innovations of the period, comparable to presses used for editions of The Faerie Queene and Spenser's works. The folio format followed precedents like the collected plays of Ben Jonson (1616) and the collected poems of Michael Drayton, using large sheets folded once to form folios and employing signatures, register marks, and typefaces common to early modern booksellers and books like Hakluyt's Voyages. The enterprise navigated censorship and licensing overseen by figures tied to the Privy Council and the Master of the Revels, while distribution reached patrons, courtiers, and institutions such as Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Content and texts included

The volume gathers comedies, histories, and tragedies long associated with William Shakespeare alongside stage directions and cast lists linked to performances by the King's Men. Plays in the collection correspond to earlier quartos of works like the quartos of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and previously uncollected plays such as Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It. The table of contents and text organization reflect dramatic typology also present in the oeuvres of John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, and the prefatory materials include commendatory verses by contemporaries such as Ben Jonson, Leonard Digges, H. H., and contributions reflecting connections to patrons like Earl of Pembroke. The inclusion of stage business and speeches bears resemblance to printed records of masques and entertainments for figures like Inigo Jones and courtly performances at Whitehall Palace.

Reception and influence

From its first circulation the collection influenced collectors, actors, scholars, and editors from the seventeenth century through the Romanticism of figures such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Samuel Johnson, and bibliographers like George Steevens, Edmond Malone, Nicholas Rowe. Institutional custodians included libraries at Windsor Castle, Bodleian Library, British Library, and collectors like Sir Thomas Bodley, Humphrey Dyson, and later bibliophiles such as Sir Francis Bacon alumni and antiquarians who treated the folio as a national treasure alongside printed monuments like The King James Bible and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. The folio shaped modern theatrical revivals, editorial practices used by Edward Capell and William Gifford, and inspired critical frameworks applied by scholars at Oxford University and Cambridge University.

Textual variations and scholarship

Scholars have long compared the folio texts with earlier quartos issued by printers such as Nicholas Okes, George Eld, and Richard Field to identify authorial revision, compositor error, and performance adaptation; textual criticism methods advanced by Edmond Malone, Sir Walter Scott, A. W. Pollard, and twentieth-century editors like T. J. B. Spencer and E. A. J. Honigmann examine scribal transmission, promptbooks, and memorial reconstruction theories proposed by critics including W. W. Greg and W. W. Lawrence. Modern scholarly editions by Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, Emma Smith, and institutional projects at Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press employ bibliographical description, copy-text principles, and digital collation techniques resonant with archival practices at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Debates persist over conflation of quarto and folio versions in plays like King Lear and Hamlet, attribution questions involving collaborators such as John Fletcher and Christopher Marlowe, and provenance studies tracing extant copies through auctions involving collectors like George Daniel and institutions such as the Pierpont Morgan Library.

Category:1623 books