For years, copies — and even partial copies — of "Shakespeare's First Folio" have been sought after by rare book collectors. Now, you can have a facsimile edition — and for slightly less than the $10 million that one sold for in 2020.
Rizzoli Books has issued a 400th-anniversary edition of the folio, enclosed in a slipcase, that sells for $135. The folio, which was originally published Nov. 8, 1623, includes 36 of William Shakespeare's plays, only half of which had been published in his lifetime.
Plays were meant to be performed, not read, of course, but a group of his friends had them collected and bound seven years after the Bard died, concerned that the works might otherwise be lost. If not for that publication, some of his best plays — including "As You Like It," "Twelfth Night," "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar" and "The Tempest" — might not have survived to appear on stages around the world today.
The edition comes with a booklet that covers the creation of the folio and positions it in history. Few playwrights had their work published at the time, for instance, and it's in the folio that Shakespeare's plays are grouped in categories still used today: histories, comedies and tragedies.
Without the folio, would the Guthrie's spring 2024 productions of three plays — "Richard II," "Henry IV" and "Henry V" (the latter of which is in the folio) — even be possible?
