Welcome to the Folger
Enjoy great stories | Explore what makes you curious | Share the best in art, history, and literature with friends and family at the world’s largest Shakespeare collection.
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What’s on
Join us for in-person and virtual events: theater, poetry, music, and more.

A Room in the Castle

How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition

Folger Salon with Beatrice Bradley and Sara Pennell

The Humanities Lab: Shakespeare 101

Folger Friday: Bachata Lessons with Bachata Sáfica

Family Workshop: The Art of the Shakespearean Power Player

The 2025 Eudora Welty Lecture: Amor Towles

Words, Words, Words: Exploring Shakespeare and Complex Texts
by Alexene Farol Follmuth

Folger Book Club: 'Twelfth Knight'
About us
How did the world’s largest Shakespeare collection end up one block from the US Capitol? Explore the Folger’s origin story.

The latest from our blogs and podcast

Teaching the Dream, sweet and bitter
How can A Midsummer Night’s Dream speak to students today? Scholar Gail Kern Paster writes that the 400-year-old play connects to a wide range of contemporary issues that 21st-century audiences care about.

About 'Twelfth Knight'
Introductory information on the April 2025 Folger Book Club selection, Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth.

Or else I’m a Jew | a series of abstractions
Artistic fellow Casey Carsel shares their process designing textile works in response to questions about the Early Modern Jewish experience

Collection Connections: Flora Carr’s 'Tower' and the Real Wives (and Maids) of Lochleven
We revisit Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich’s March 2025 presentation as part of our Folger Book Club discussion of Flora Carr’s The Tower. Explore Folger collection items that relate to the novel.

Julia Armfield Reimagines King Lear in a Drowning World
How does King Lear resonate in a world reshaped by climate change? Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, set in a flooded London, explores inheritance, power, and queerness amid disaster. Longlisted for the 2024 Climate Fiction Prize, she shares how Shakespeare influences her work.

The Women Who Served the Queens of Henry VIII
Who were the ladies-in-waiting to each of Henry VIII’s six wives and what were their lives like? An excerpt from Nicola Clark’s The Waiting Game looks at these overlooked but influential figures.
Our collection

The First Folio
The Folger has the world’s largest collection of First Folios. Learn more about the book that gave us Shakespeare.

A majestic portrait
The Folger collection includes about 200 paintings. This portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by George Gower is dated 1579, making it the oldest painting in our collection. Two years after he completed this portrait, Gower became Serjeant Painter to the Queen, making him the most important artist in England.
Our other Elizabeth I holdings include hand-signed letters, books, and even New Year’s gift rolls detailing her holiday gifts. It is the largest collection of Elizabeth I materials in North America.

Shakespeare’s works
View the full list of plays and poems to read, search, and download our bestselling editions of Shakespeare’s works.
Shakespeare’s most popular plays
Explore

What was Shakespeare's theater like?
Learn about the Globe and other London playhouses where Shakespeare’s company performed. What was it like to be an actor there, or an audience member?
Teach

How can Shakespeare help 21st-century students be stronger readers?
Our Folger Method is revolutionizing how not just Shakespeare but all literature is taught using strategies that allow all students to own – and enjoy – complex texts.
Research

If we are what we eat, what can recipes from the past tell us?
Projects like Before ‘Farm to Table’ unite scholars and practitioners in investigations into the past to shed light on what matters to us today.

Support the things you love
Your gifts make access to our collection, learning opportunities, and exciting experiences happen.