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British Library Publishing will publish a luxury, slip-cased facsimile of a complete Shakespeare First Folio from the library’s collections.
Publication will be on 5th October 2023 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The volume will be co-published by RizzoliElecta in North America.
A series of events at the library will accompany publication, alongside the wider national and international Folio 400 celebrations. Among these will be a display of early Shakespeare editions, including the Phelps-Clifford First Folio, in its Treasures Gallery from October 2023 to February 2024
The First Folio is the most complete record of William Shakespeare’s plays. Published in 1623, seven years after his death, it is famous for its role in immortalising his works and as an example of 17th-century bookmaking and publishing history.
The folio features oversize volumes made of whole sheets of paper folded only once, a format that had previously been reserved for scholarly works.
In the years after the Bard’s death, two of the "Principall Actors", who had performed alongside him in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (who became the King’s Men in 1603), collated and edited the Folio text. They also arranged for its printing using Shakespeare’s own drafts, handwritten records and theatrical promptbooks.
British Library Publishing’s full-size, authentic facsimile, comprising 912 pages, has been recreated in colour as a faithful reproduction of the Phelps-Clifford First Folio, containing one of only four surviving portraits of Shakespeare in its earliest printed state. The pages are bound in a foiled, real-cloth case which presents the decoration of the original.
The new slip-cased edition, priced at £125, includes a six-page booklet with an introduction by two of the British Library’s Printed Heritage Collection curators, Adrian Edwards and Tanya Kirk. In it, they explain the history and enduring significance of the First Folio.
John Lee, publisher at the British Library, commented: “We were motivated by the exciting idea of anyone being able to pick up and be inspired by an authentic copy of one of the most important books in literature. Our team and partners have come a long way from that point and it has been some design, repro and production journey to create a product worthy of this challenge and of such a spectacular anniversary."