The First folio 1623 John Heminge (an actor and thought to be the first Falstaff) and Henry Condell (a comedy actor) had been actors with Shakespeare in the King's Men, the theatrical company for which Shakespeare wrote plays. They became concerned about the number of corrupt copies of Shakespeares plays in circulation and so put together the First folio in 1623. They were able to work from some original manuscripts and prompters books. Around 750 copies were printed and 233 are known to survive of which only 40 are complete. One third of the surviving copies are in the Folger Shakespeare library in Washington DC. Folger was the president of Standard oil. Only three have come up at auction in the last decade and reaching millions of dollars. It is one of the most valuable books with estimated prices paid up to £5million. Only 18 of Shakespeares plays had been published prior to their work but the first folio contained 36 plays and was treated as the only authoritative version of the plays. The new plays wereMacbeth The TempestJulius Caesar The Two Gentlemen of Verona Measure for Measure The Comedy of ErrorsAs You Like It The Taming of the ShrewKing John Alls Well That Ends Well Twelfth Night The Winters Tale Henry the Vth Part 1 Henry VIII CoriolanusCymbeline Timon of AthensAntony and Cleopatra
I love Bill Brysons books and in his book on Shakespeare, with
regard to the Droeshout image he says What is certain is that the Droeshout portrait was not done from life:
Shakespeare had been dead for seven years by the time of the first folio.
It is assumed he was working from an existing image. To confuse things
even further there were two Martin Droeshouts and later research now points
to this being the work of the elder not the inexperienced younger. |
![]() |
Page
42
|