Shakespeare & Beyond

This excerpt from “London’s Triumph” by Stephen Alford looks at the Elizabethan understanding of usury, seen through Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.”

Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company shares what it’s like to play Richard Burbage onstage in Lauren Gunderson’s “The Book of Will.”

Editing Shakespeare’s works is a complex process, explains Barbara Mowat, who with Paul Werstine edited the Folger Shakespeare Library editions.

We’ve got five Shakespeare-themed Christmas gift ideas for you, selected from the Folger shop and all under $20, from games to artwork and more.

Families share Shakespeare together in so many ways, such as watching his plays, quoting familiar lines, or throwing a Shakespeare birthday party.

Every month, we share a snapshot of Shakespeare in performance around America. Let’s check in with our theater partners with Shakespeare plays onstage in November and December.

In this pumpkin pie recipe from the late 1600s, you peel and slice the pumpkin into thin wedges, dipping them in egg before frying them. Apples, raisins, currants, and sherry also get added to the pie.

Books on manners became so popular during the Elizabethan period that it was only a matter of time before someone satirized them.

“Manners maketh man” was the motto of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Would your own table manners pass inspection?

Shakespeare’s plays are full of battles dominated by men, but one of his most compelling speeches about the life of a soldier comes from a woman: Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part 1, speaking to her husband, Hotspur.

When Hamlet first encounters his father’s ghost, the Danish prince’s reactions reflect Shakespeare’s understanding of the theological differences between early modern Catholics and Protestants regarding the spiritual realm, says David Scott Kastan.

Transparencies, popular in the late 1700s, use back-lighting to reveal a secret image. See one from the Folger collection that reveals Shakespeare’s ghost in Westminster Abbey.