A Pair of Shakespeare First Folios at the Library of Congress

This year marks the 400^th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio of William Shakespeare. Printed in November of 1623, Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies contained 36 known plays by the bard, 20 of which had never been printed before. The First Folio is a posthumous publication: seven years after Shakespeare’s death, a group of his colleagues gathered and edited the texts from earlier printings and manuscripts that had been collected from former players and producers.

Title page Shakespeare's First Folio 1623 — William Shakespeare. *Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories & tragedies, published according to the true originall copies.* (London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623). Rare Book and Special Collections Division. https://lccn.loc.gov/96223545

Scholars believe that about 750 copies of the First Folio were printed between about February 1622 and November 1623. Some of the odd printing history is reflected in variants of the book where the type was reset and the order of the plays was changed, such as the play Troilus and Cressida, which was originally meant to follow Romeo and Juliet in the text, but was moved and reset while questions about the printing rights were resolved.

Shakespeare's Macbeth in the First Folio — “The Tragedie of Macbeth,” in *Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies* (London, 1623). Rare Book and Special Collections Division. https://lccn.loc.gov/96223545

Of the original 750 copies printed, only 235 are known to have survived. The Washington, D.C. area has one of the highest number of First Folios anywhere in the world, largely because the Folger Shakespeare Library holds 82 copies–more than a third of extant copies. The Library of Congress is fortunate to own two copies of the First Folio in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

The Library acquired its first copy by purchase in 1889. It has the bookplate of Richard Wright, MD (1739-1786). Wright was a physician; born in Derbyshire, he attended Cambridge University where he received his A.B. in 1762 and his M.D. in 1773, and he was admitted as a Fellow to the Royal College of Physicians in 1775. Wright served as a physician at St. George’s Hospital in London from 1769 to 1785 and passed away on October 14, 1786.

Wright was a lover of literature, particularly drama and poetry, and his library of nearly 3,000 volumes of plays, poems, novels, Greek and Roman Classics, and historical medical books was sold at auction in London over the course of eleven days beginning on April 23, 1787. Included in the sale was his copy of the First Folio, which sold for 10 pounds. Clearly a lover of Shakespeare, his library also contained two copies of the Second Folio (printed in 1632), and a copy each of the Third (1663) and Fourth (1