
Explore the contents of the First Folio, just as a reader might have done in 1623—when the brand-new book offered the first chance to see some of Shakespeare's plays in print.
The First Folio famously includes 36 Shakespeare plays—18 of which had never been published before. But there's even more to the First Folio. The pages before the first play (The Tempest) are full of highlights: a portrait of Shakespeare that was approved by those who knew him; two poems by fellow playwright Ben Jonson; an introduction by the actor-editors John Heminge and Henry Condell; and much more.
Sample some pages from the First Folio in the gallery below, including famous passages from some of the plays that had never been published before. You can also look for common phrases from Shakespeare in the First Folio (like "it's high time"), see the entire book in our First Folio reader, or download the pages from our image database.
The printing is clear and legible. But some old-fashioned spelling—and how some letters appear—may surprise you. Here's how the letters have changed:
- The letters now written as I and J were essentially the same letter. The name "Jonson" probably sounded much as it does today. But "Ben Jonson" was spelled Ben Ionson. The poem by Ben Jonson that faces the title page is signed with the letters B I.
- The letters U and V both existed, but were often used interchangeably, or according to different rules than they are today. So the word Love appears as Loue: "If Musicke be the food of Loue, play on."
- The letter s or S appeared in two different forms. In some cases, the letter looked like it does now. In others, it is a "long s," which looks something like the letter f.