Folger Finds

Explore collection items about early 20th-century performances outdoors by the Ben Greet Players, who played college campuses across the US—and eventually the front lawn of the White House, along with designs from the Folger’s 2026 production.

Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were beloved for their Shakespeare performances, whether at London’s Lyceum Theater or on tour. New additions to the Folger collection show the acclaimed artists at work and play in Victorian England.

In 1936, Britain’s first feature-length Shakespeare “talkie” premiered: As You Like It featuring Elisabeth Bergner and Laurence Olivier in his first Shakespeare role on screen. Explore the film’s press kits and study guides.

19th-century American Actor Ira Aldridge is remembered as a pioneering performer who refused to let racism prevent him from pursuing his passion for performing Shakespeare, first in New York and then abroad. Explore his story.

Take a time machine back to 18th-century London and John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, visited by everyone who was anyone, from Jane Austen to the Prince of Wales. But why make a gallery devoted to Shakespeare? And who was Boydell?

Actress Sarah Siddons was 18th-century London’s best-known tragedienne, most famous for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth. An assortment of objects from our collection show her rise as an early star of modern celebrity culture.

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.

Bess of Hardwick was the other famous Bess in Elizabethan England, after “Good Queen Bess,” aka Queen Elizabeth. Fabulously wealthy and savvy, she outlived four husbands, rising in status with each one. Trace her evolving power in letters from her last three husbands.

Explore fireworks in our collection, which include illustrations from extravagant public spectacles and technical manuals with instructions for making your own.

19th-century audiences adored Charlotte Cushman in Shakespeare, including Hamlet and Romeo but also Viola (and Cesario). Check out these Twelfth Night finds in our collection.

One of 18th-century Britain’s most prolific narrative painters, Henry Fuseli found inspiration in Shakespeare, with his painting of Macbeth and the witches one of his “best poetical conceptions.”

This signboard, probably created in the late 1600s to the early 1700s, is based on the popular “Chandos portrait”—the only portrait of Shakespeare that may have been painted from life.