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.
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.
On stage next
Get your tickets now to see the first play in Folger Theatre’s 2025-2026 season.
Julius X
More Folger events
Join us for talks, poetry, music, and other programs.
Family Workshop: A Living Shakespearean Sonnet
Antonio!
Folger Salon with Gbenga Adesina, John Colley, and Tamara Walker
Julius X
Creative Conversations: Julius X
Out of the Vault
Tomorrow’s Verses: The O.B. Hardison Reading
Our Shakespeare Exhibition
The Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute: Celebrating Jane Austen at 250
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
Twelfth Night indoors and out
Scholar Simon Smith explores Twelfth Night’s rich history on indoor and outdoor stages, asking how different spaces shape the play’s performance possibilities.
Beyond National Boundaries: A Season of New Acquisitions, Part II
More new exciting additions to the Folger collection!
Truly Rooted in DC: Folger Artistic Director Karen Ann Daniels Offers a First Look at 'As You Like It'
In this Q&A, Karen Ann Daniels discusses anchoring her spring 2026 production of As You Like It in DC culture.
Folger Finds: Women and Shakespeare
Explore First Folios owned by two 17th-century women, a prop dagger used by a leading actress of the late 19th century, and scripts and programs from a 20th-century women’s theater in Japan that’s still performing Shakespeare today.
Beyond National Boundaries: A Season of New Acquisitions, Part I
Caroline Duroselle-Melish, Curator of Early Modern Books and Prints, highlights some exciting new items in the Folger collection
Director Rosa Joshi on Julius Caesar Today
Rosa Joshi talks about her bold new staging of Julius Caesar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival,. Performed entirely by women and nonbinary actors, the production reframes Shakespeare’s political thriller for today’s fight against autocracy.
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.