In 1622, two aging actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, approached a London publisher with a proposal. These veterans of the Globe Theater wished to collect and publish the works of their late friend and partner, William Shakespeare, now six years dead. The resulting First Folio containing 36 plays appeared the next year, half of them (e.g., "Macbeth," "The Tempest," "Julius Caesar") never previously published. Without their efforts, Paul Collins tells us in this delightful literary ramble, "it would be as if the greatest works of English literature had never happened."

Collins structures "The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World" in Shakespearean manner, with five acts broken into scenes. The early acts center on the creation of the Folios, their diaspora and their survival. We learn that Heminge and Condell had to seek publication rights from pub owners. "The Merchant of Venice," for instance, belonged to the Green Dragon tavern. Further, we discover the difficulties of putting the Folio into print. Page 1 and page 12 were printed on the same sheet, so pages 2-11 had to be made to fit within.

Many of the 750 First Folios have bitten the dust. As newer, presumably better editions followed, buyers discarded the earlier works and used the pages for scrap paper. Many, no doubt, perished in London's Great Fire of 1666. A number probably continue to slumber peacefully in attic chests. Collins' narrative shows us how Shakespeare was read, regarded and sometimes disposed of through the centuries.

"The Book of William" is, however, more than a compelling history. Collins is an impassioned bibliophile, and the Folio is Everybook: "The story of each Folio, of each survivor across four centuries from that Barbicon print shop, is the story of the vicissitudes of every book after it leaves the author's hands: They are scorned and loved, remade and destroyed, and eternally lost and found again."

Collins takes us to places where people love books. He introduces us to Thomas Dibden, the 18th-century book dealer who created the first census of First Folios, and to Anthony West, his contemporary counterpart, who has identified 230 extant First Folios. Act IV travels to the Folger Library in Washington, D.C., where Collins examines the best and worst of their 58 Folios. And he concludes his quest in Japan, site of some of the world's most avid collectors and a lengthy Shakespearean tradition, dating to an 1885 production of "Life Is as Fragile as Cherry Blossoms in a World of Money," an adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice."

Full of humor, history and travel, "The Book of William" is an excellent summer read. Hark! A noise! The hammock beckons.

Thomas Zelman teaches English at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.