The Folger’s collection is vast and varied, including printed books; manuscripts; prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, and other works of art; and a wealth of performance history, from playbills to films, recordings, and stage costumes.
In addition to the rare material collection, the Folger holds a collection of over 100,000 monographs, periodicals, and electronic resources published between the 1830s and the present, related to the understanding and interpretation of Shakespeare, his works and impact, and to the early modern world.
Printed Books
Manuscripts
Works of Art
Performance History
History of the collection
Henry Clay Folger and his wife, Emily Jordan Folger, began amassing the collection of rare books that would become the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1889. They spent decades gathering the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, as well as associated works from Shakespeare’s time. The Library itself opened in 1932, and continues to expand its holdings today.
Caring for our collections
Related blog posts
Explore some of the scholarly work being done with, in, and around our collections.
Conservation Interns at Work
Conservation interns from the Folger and Library of Congress share their experience working across both institutions to learn new techniques for treating materials and for preparing materials for exhibition.
“I have lately been promoted to the ‘big douche’”
Through her correspondence, Delia Salter Bacon reveals what it was like to undergo a 19th century “water-cure”
Performing Race in the London Lord Mayors’ Show, 1660-1708
Fellow Jamie Gemmell explores how race was performed in the annual London Lord Mayor’s Show
Defining Beauty in Text and Image in the late Seventeenth-Century
Fellow Jean Marie Christensen explores beauty standards of the 17th century.
Medicinal Plants, Colonial Weeds, and Biodiversity Loss
Herbarius: A New Herbal for the Anthropocene, by 2024-25 artist research fellow Suzette Marie Martin, is a “deconstructed manuscript” series of paintings that traces the intercontinental dispersal of non-native plant species through formerly valued medicinal herbs, now despised as weeds.