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.
Our building is reopening in 2024!
Plan your visit
Be the first to explore our new exhibition galleries, learning labs, cafe, and expanded gardens after a three-year building renovation. Check out our list of five must dos, take a drone tour of our historic spaces, and see what’s on stage.
What’s on
Join us for in-person and virtual events.
The Personal Librarian
Folger Book Club:
The Personal Librarian
Drink like it's 1699
What is...Secularity?
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
Shakespeare and the Ocean, with Steve Mentz
Folger Members can preview this podcast episode now!
The Shakespearean parts of “Barbenheimer”
Austin Tichenor explores how Barbie and Oppenheimer wrestle with Shakespearean themes of identity, hubris, and redemption.
Greeting Visitors with Inviting Outdoor Spaces
Gardens, landscaping, Puck, and poetry
About 'The Personal Librarian'
Introductory information on the September 2023 Folger Book Club selection which explores the remarkable life of Belle da Costa Greene.
5 things to look for when you watch Twelfth Night
We ask a few of our favorite Shakespeareans what you should keep an eye out for when you watch Twelfth Night.
Postcards in the (home) archive 1965–1985
A continuation of the series looking at Folger Shakespeare Library postcards.
Birds of Shakespeare: The loon
The loon appears just once in Shakespeare’s plays, in a line from Macbeth.
Farah Karim-Cooper on The Great White Bard
Can we love Shakespeare and be antiracist? Farah Karim-Cooper’s new book explores the language of race and difference in plays such as Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and The Tempest.
Quiz: Hamlet or Polonius?
Who said it: Hamlet or Polonius? Test your knowledge of these well-known lines from Hamlet.
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.