Printing Press Demonstrations

In the Shakespeare Exhibition Hall, you can see a printing press similar to the one that printed the First Folio, the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays. To learn more about this press and to see it in action, join us for printing press demonstrations on the second Saturday of each month.

Visitors can come and go during demonstrations, which last an hour. We encourage you to take home a copy of what’s being printed, usually an opening from the First Folio.

About the printing press

Press builder Alan May based this press on a description in Joseph Moxon’s landmark book Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683), the first English-language printing manual.

In the Shakespeare Exhibition Hall, the press is located next to the display of the Folger’s 82 copies of the First Folio—the collection of Shakespeare’s plays without which 18 plays might have been lost.