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
What’s on
Join us for in-person and virtual events: theater, poetry, music, and more.

The Love Birds

Folger Salon with Alex Baines, Rob Clines, and Anandi Rao

How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition

Folger Friday: Black Arts Fest

Our Shakespeare Exhibition

Disability Poetics with Camisha Jones and torrin a. greathouse

Get Your Students into the Folger Collection!

Cocktails and Conversation with Luis Carazo

Mixology: Game Night
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

What's onstage at Shakespeare theaters in February
See what’s playing at our Shakespeare Theater Partners around the country this February.

Seeking and Finding: Using the Collection in an Undergraduate Writing Class
GWU students reflect on their experience using the Folger collections in Dr. Rachel Pollack’s first-year writing course.

Quiz: Shakespeare, love, and lovers
What did Shakespeare’s characters have to say about love and lovers? Try our quiz to complete their lines.

Shakespeare’s narrative poems
How did early modern England perceive race? Patricia Akhimie, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, and contributing writers Dennis Britton and Kirsten Mendoza examine race, gender, and power in Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.

Black artists and scholars on Shakespeare
In celebration of Black History Month, we’re sharing Shakespeare Unlimited podcast interviews, lectures, and blog posts with acclaimed Black artists, poets, scholars, and educators about Shakespeare through history.

Unsexing St. Agatha
To celebrate her feast day, explore the legend of Saint Agatha as told through Folger manuscript V.b.334
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
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.