The Four Shakespeare Folios, 1623–2023

A collection of essays by leading scholars of Shakespeare in print, offering an overview of current research on the Folios and on unsettled questions about the bibliography of Shakespeare’s plays.

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Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, more widely known as the First Folio, contains thirty-six of the thirty-eight plays attributed in whole or in part to Shakespeare. Published in 1623, it has been the object of continued scholarly focus, while three subsequent folio printings—occurring in 1632, 1663/64, and 1685—are often considered mere derivatives of the First. This volume endeavors to correct and give nuance to this view.

Considering the evolution of Shakespeare in print through these successive Folios, this book seeks a new direction for Shakespeare bibliography—one that trends toward more discursive, contingent, and embodied evidence and away from questions of textual priority. Written by leading scholars of Shakespeare in print, the chapters present an overview of current research and relate new work on unsettled questions about the bibliography of Shakespeare’s plays. This book challenges the view that the survival of Shakespeare’s plays was due primarily to the survival of the First Folio. Rather, the four Folios each contributed to the gradual elevation of Shakespeare in the English literary canon.

The contributors to this volume include Erin C. Blake, Claire M. L. Bourne, Zachary Lesser, Tara L. Lyons, and Andrew Murphy, with a concluding chapter by Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick, Laura S. DeLuca, Elizabeth Dieterich, Kartik Goyal, Max G’Sell, Samuel V. Lemley, D. J. Schuldt, Kari Thomas, Nikolai Vogler, and Christopher N. Warren, and a foreword by Keith Webster.