This was the very first First Folio that Henry and Emily Folger purchased. Several early readers added their signatures to this First Folio. Like many First Folios, it is far from perfect: the pages for The Merry Wives of Windsor come from another First Folio, and part of the introduction is damaged. The first leaf (Ben Jonson’s verse “To the Reader”) and the famous title page with Shakespeare’s portrait are facsimiles.
The First Folio is the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays, produced seven years after his death. Learn more about this book and see inside.
