Twelfth Night in the Folger Collection

It’s not every season a collection item that speaks to a Folger Theatre production is acquired. This year, serendipity intervened, and the library purchased a gorgeous artist’s book of Twelfth Night just months before the final play of the season was set to open.

Although the name “artist book” seems obvious, the category is quite broad encompassing many different relationships between textual and visual material. The Smithsonian Libraries categorize this form as existing “at the intersections of printmaking, photography, poetry, experimental narrative, visual arts, graphic design, and publishing.” But, no, that does not mean that anything can be an artist’s book.

The Twelfth Night (Folger 273116) acquired this spring from the Folger showcases German artist Friederike von Hellermann’s skill as an artist, bookmaker, and designer. She created six copies of Twelfth Night entirely by hand in 2012. The Folger’s copy was submitted by the artist for the 2013 Designer Bookbinder’s Competition and is the only one to have a special binding box. The competition’s theme that year was Shakespeare. Von Hellermann opted to create an entire work of art, producing all aspects of the book from the binding to the pochoir prints to the setting of the text based on the Oxford World Classics edition of Twelfth Night. ‘Pochoir’ comes from the French word for ‘stencil’ and involves the use of stencils to layer paint. The method was popularized during the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements and reached new artistic heights in the works of Picasso, Miró, and Matisse. Hellermann chose to work with one of her favorite plays, Twelfth Night, and, as she explains in her artistic statement, set the “comedy, the confusion, and mix-ups of life” of the play in the exuberant 1920s.

More Twelfth Night in our collection

The Folger’s collection holds about 1300 rare materials related to Twelfth Night. Other interesting finds in the collection include: 

Twelfth Night illustrated

Visual materials in the collection span many types of mediums from wood engravings to mezzotints to porcelains and everything in between. In addition to illustrating the plays themselves, these various visual representations can also reveal artistic sensibilities of the time they were produced and serve as documentation of historic performances. Although it is difficult to be certain, these watercolor drawings (ART Box W951 no. 3-5) were likely produced by J.M. Wright either in preparation for his engravings of these scenes from the play or afterwards as a painted representation of the engravings. No. 3 depicts Act III, scene IV and No. 5 depicts Act I, scene V from Twelfth Night.   

Twelfth Night in translation

The collection holds translations of the play into at least twenty other languages, including this 1939 Chinese translation (PR2796.C4 T6 1939 Sh.Col.), this 1946 Turkish translation (PR2796.T8 T6 1946 Sh.Col.), and this 1969 Hindi translation (PR2796.H4 T6 A1 Sh.Col.). To find other translations, search “Twelfth Night” in the Folger catalog and then review the language filter on the left of the results page.  

Twelfth Night in performance  

On August 30th, 1937 CBS radio aired an adaptation of Twelfth Night by Brewster Morgan. Starring Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Malvolio, Orson Welles as Duke Orsino, and Tallulah Bankhead as Viola/Cesario, this radio play was part of the “Columbia Shakespeare Cycle.” CBS produced this series to compete with rival NBC’s popular production of Hamlet starring John Barrymore. This promptbook for the CBS radio play (PROMPT T.N. Fo.1) was gifted to the Folger by CBS the year it was broadcast. 

Closer to the Folger’s home, DC’s still-active Arena Stage mounted Twelfth Night in 1951, directed by one of the theater’s co-founders, Zelda Fichandler. Arena Stage was DC’s first integrated theatre – both on stage and in the audience. The play ran from June 5th until July 1st, and received excellent reviews. The Folger was given the binder of original costume designs along with a program and newspaper clipping profiling the somewhat mysterious designer, Michael Hunt, or “Mike.” Without going into detail as to why the program named the designer as Michael, the Washington Post article in the binder profiles Marie Hunt, a woman from Falls Church, VA who designed and produced the costumes. The artist came to the library on March 11th, 1984, shortly before her death, to re-sign the designs ‘Mrs. M. Marie Hunt’. Finally, her name was attributed to her stunning designs in the Folger’s collection.  

No quartos?  

One book you won’t find in the Folger’s collection is a quarto of Twelfth Night that predates the printing of the First Folio in 1623. In fact, you won’t find that quarto in any collection. This is because Twelfth Night – like Macbeth and The Tempest – first appeared in the First Folio, despite records indicating the play was first performed in 1602. If the First Folio had not been printed, it is uncertain whether Twelfth Night would have survived to the present day! 

No time to visit? 

If you don’t have time to research in the reading room, you can visit the Stuart and Mimi Rose gallery to see the “On Stage” case which highlights American celebrity Charlotte Cushman’s performances as Viola/Cesario in mid-19th century productions of Twelfth Night. For an in-depth dive into the “On Stage” case, check out this blogpost on Shakespeare & Beyond.