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 this fall!
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
Discover what’s playing and on exhibit, both on the road and virtually, including our Searching for Shakespeare: Celebrating 400 years of Shakespeare’s First Folio festival in April.
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
DC & Me Living Folio Workshop Series - Mt. Pleasant
Make-a-Folio
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
Searching for Shakespeare: April 17 - 23
This week, visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library to see a performance and visit the First Folio! Plus, the citywide scavenger hunt continues.
Printing plays in Mexico
Dumbarton Oaks fellow Abner Aldarondo explores a book in the Folger Collection that gathers together six plays printed in Mexico City in the 1830s.
Birds of Shakespeare: The partridge
In 1536 Henry VIII forbade killing partridges to ensure populations could support falconry. Shakespeare refers to the partridge twice, both as examples of slaughtered prey.
"To preserve the memorie": Cocktails inspired by the Folger Collection
Mixology is back! Join us as we explore memory, preservation, and (of course!) cocktails in the three-part blog series ‘Mixology and Memorie.’”
James Ijames on Fat Ham
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright tells us about his hilarious adaptation of 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.