Ask a Librarian | The Folger’s most frequently asked Shakespeare questions

In the past year, the Folger answered more than 1,456 reference questions online. The inquiries came from 40 states and 18 countries. Reference Associate Erika Giddens, who manages the Folger’s Ask a Librarian service, takes us behind the scenes to share some of the most asked questions.

No two reference questions are alike. Our Ask a Librarian service answers questions from a wide variety of audiences, including students, artists, researchers, visitors, staff, and members of the public. We support an international research community, and questions come to us in all shapes and sizes.

However, even though questions don’t usually repeat, they sometimes rhyme. Here are some of the types of questions we see regularly, and how we might answer.

Q: What does this quote from Shakespeare mean?

I will let you in on a secret. I don’t know either. (Actually, that’s true of most of the questions I answer. Luckily for me, my job is not to know everything; it’s to know how to find out). The good news here is that I have access to a lot of resources in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection to help us figure it out together. To answer these questions, I’ll consult some experts and report back what they have to say.

I start by first making sure I know exactly which quote we’re talking about by locating the play, act, scene, and line. I use keywords to search all of Shakespeare’s works.

Once I know the quote’s location, I’ll navigate to that line in several modern editions and check the notes to see where the editors agree or disagree. I usually start by checking the Folger Shakespeare, Arden Shakespeare, Oxford Shakespeare, and New Cambridge Shakespeare editions (a short list I learned from the former Folger Research and Reference Librarian Abbie Weinberg). I’ll also check the New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, which collates notes across multiple critical editions.

In the event that none of these have much to say about the line, or we need further clarification, I will also use the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is a historical dictionary. It’s especially helpful if a word has changed meaning over time.

After all that, I’ll present the puzzle pieces I find, but then it’s up to you what you do with them. What do you think it means?

Q: Why are there differences in modern Shakespeare editions? / What’s the original version of the play? / What’s the most authoritative version?

We receive a number of questions that often boil down to questions about the publication of Shakespeare’s works, from Shakespeare’s time to present day. For context, you can read a brief history about the publication of Shakespeare’s plays. The short answer is, it depends on the play.

To answer these kinds of questions, I’ll go back to the all Shakespeare’s works web page and navigate to the play we’re interested in. Hamlet is a good one for this question. Under the “Essays and resources” section, I’ll look for two very important essays: An Introduction to This Text, which provides a description of the publishing history of the play and the Folger editors’ approach to this edition, and Textual Notes, which provides a record of the variants in the early printings of the text.

If you scroll even further down on the main Hamlet web page, you will also find fully digitized versions of the earliest published editions in our collection. I really encourage you to spend some time taking a look at these primary sources. In addition to being very cool old books, they’re how Shakespeare’s audiences would have first encountered the printed versions of the plays.

Q: How many times has this Shakespeare play been performed? / How many times has this Shakespeare play been published? / [Guinness World Records type of questions]

These are great questions that unfortunately usually have a disappointing answer: it’s really, really hard to count. What counts as a performance, for example? What time period, continent, or countries are we including? Should we only count professional theatrical productions? What about movie adaptations, operas, ballets, radio shows, or school productions? Have the productions all been advertised and documented in a way that makes them discoverable?

However, there are some resources I rely on regularly that do aggregate really helpful data. To name just a couple, the World Shakespeare Bibliography indexes Shakespeare-related scholarship and theatrical productions published or produced worldwide since 1960.

For in-depth publication information, Shakespeare in print : a history and chronology of Shakespeare publishing by Andrew Murphy is really useful.

Out of curiosity, I did visit the Guinness World Records site to see what Shakespeare records they report. Apparently the  fastest time to watch live productions of every play by William Shakespeare was completed by Dan Wilson in 328 days. Neat!

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At the Folger, we answer all kinds of questions from anyone who asks, and curiosity is a good enough reason to ask. Whether you need help navigating the Folger collection, finding sources for your research paper, or fact-checking for your local trivia night, feel free to Ask a Librarian. I’ll be looking forward to your questions.