Welcome to the Folger
Enjoy great stories | Explore what makes you curious | Share the best in art, history, and literature with friends and family at the world’s largest Shakespeare collection.
The Folger is open! New exhibition galleries, gardens, and shop
Plan your visit
Get details and reserve timed-entry passes.
Explore our exhibitions
See what’s on view in our galleries.
Take a tour
Reserve a group tour or student experience.
Check out our shop
Gifts, games, merch, and more!
Eat at Quill & Crumb
Enjoy lunch or a quick snack at our new café.
What’s on
Join us for in-person and virtual events: theater, poetry, music, and more.
DC, I Love You: Ready or Not
Twelfth Night
How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition
Virtual Folger Salon with Charmaine Cordero, Esteban Crespo, and Toby Yuen-Gen Liang
On demand: The 2025 Eudora Welty Lecture with Amor Towles
Cocktails and Conversation with John Douglas Thompson and Daniela Varon
Cocktails and Conversation with Michael W. Twitty
Out of the Vault
Cocktails and Conversation: "Cultural Cadences" with Nakeisha Daniel and JaMeeka Holloway
About us
How did the world’s largest Shakespeare collection end up one block from the US Capitol? Explore the Folger’s origin story.
The latest from our blogs and podcast
Artists and scholars on queer Shakespeare
We’re celebrating Pride Month by sharing some of our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast interviews and blog posts with acclaimed artists, actors, directors, scholars, and writers about queer Shakespeare over the centuries.
Color of Character: Racial Cues in the Visual Othello
A participant in the undergraduate seminar, Whose Sovereignty?, explores depictions of Othello in the Folger collection
Simon Russell Beale on Shakespeare, from Hamlet to Titus
Called “the finest actor of his generation,” Beale has played just about everyone in Shakespeare’s canon. He reflects on the roles that have shaped his career and how his approach has evolved over time.
Order it: Viola's speech "I left no ring with her"
Viola aka Cesario is stunned to realize that she is in the middle of a love triangle, after Olivia sends a ring. Order the lines of her Twelfth Night speech as she puts it all together in our quiz.
Collection Connections: Magic and Mayhem in the Tudor Court: Juno Dawson's "Queen B"
We revisit Beth DeBold’s June 2025 presentation as part of our Folger Book Club discussion of Juno Dawson’s Queen B.
Playing the Fool in Lear and Peking Opera
In an excerpt from The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear, author Nan Z. Da looks at the role of the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear and the Chou in Peking Opera.
Our collection
The First Folio
The Folger has the world’s largest collection of First Folios. Learn more about the book that gave us Shakespeare.
A majestic portrait
The Folger collection includes about 200 paintings. This portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by George Gower is dated 1579, making it the oldest painting in our collection. Two years after he completed this portrait, Gower became Serjeant Painter to the Queen, making him the most important artist in England.
Our other Elizabeth I holdings include hand-signed letters, books, and even New Year’s gift rolls detailing her holiday gifts. It is the largest collection of Elizabeth I materials in North America.
Shakespeare’s works
View the full list of plays and poems to read, search, and download our bestselling editions of Shakespeare’s works.
Shakespeare’s most popular plays
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Julius Caesar
Othello
Hamlet
Explore
What was Shakespeare's theater like?
Learn about the Globe and other London playhouses where Shakespeare’s company performed. What was it like to be an actor there, or an audience member?
Teach
How can Shakespeare help 21st-century students be stronger readers?
Our Folger Method is revolutionizing how not just Shakespeare but all literature is taught using strategies that allow all students to own – and enjoy – complex texts.
Research
If we are what we eat, what can recipes from the past tell us?
Projects like Before ‘Farm to Table’ unite scholars and practitioners in investigations into the past to shed light on what matters to us today.
Support the things you love
Your gifts make access to our collection, learning opportunities, and exciting experiences happen.