The book that saved half of Shakespeare

When Shakespeare died in 1616, around half of his plays existed only as playhouse scripts. Plays were seen as working documents, not literature, and scripts were easily lost or burned.

Seven years later, two of his fellow actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, published a collected edition: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, now known as the First Folio. It contained 36 plays.

Eighteen of them had never been printed before, including Macbeth, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and Antony and Cleopatra. Without the Folio, we would probably never have read them.

Around 750 copies were printed in 1623, and about 235 survive. One sold in 2020 for almost ten million dollars. In the opening pages, Ben Jonson wrote that Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time”. Two friends made sure that was possible.