Shakespeare & Beyond

If you’re going to see a performance of The Winter’s Tale, perhaps you’ve read the play (or maybe just the plot summary)—or maybe you’re going in cold. So, what should you look for in this Shakespeare play?

“The Bard Goes West” showcases two ways that Hollywood adapts Shakespeare: staying fairly true to the play, and using the plots but not his language.

Theater was very popular in California’s Gold Rush era, and miners couldn’t get enough of Shakespeare. Even gold-mining towns had stages or performance spaces.

One the First Folio’s owners, Captain Charles Hutchinson, clearly valued the book as a reflection on his family’s place in English history. Not only did he restore it, but he also treated it as a scrapbook of sorts, working in details and documents related to his family history.

Throughout 2016, the Folger has been sending a copy of the First Folio to every state, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, in a traveling exhibition.

Are you a fan of YA novels? Young adult literature is booming right now, from contemporary sob-fests like The Fault in Our Stars to action adventure series like The Maze Runner. And with Shakespeare a staple of the high school classroom, it makes…

We’ve got nine Shakespeare-themed Christmas gift ideas for you, selected from the Folger shop and all under $20. Find something for your friend, your sibling, your favorite English teacher, or yourself! 1. A Shakespeare quotes mug Drink hot chocolate from a mug with…

Here’s a round-up of Shakespeare-related books, fiction and nonfiction, that are on our must-read list. Ira’s Shakespeare Dream Glenda Armand (author), Floyd Cooper (illustrator) This story of famed African-American actor Ira Aldridge, who believed he could be a great Shakespearean…

First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare opening reception at the Mead Art Museum. May 9, 2016. Photo by Maria Stenzel. On a typical book tour, authors travel to read from their work, sign copies, and give talks. But…

The First Folio tour is coming to an end! These are the last tour stops where the First Folio will be on display, after which the books will be returning home to the Folger Shakespeare Library, where they will join the…

By Esther Ferington The roles of early modern women in Shakespeare’s time—both the fictional characters in his plays and the real-life women of his era—have been central to many projects created by Georgianna Ziegler, Louis B. Thalheimer Associate Librarian and…

“Let the sky rain potatoes… I will shelter me here.” Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor is referring here to a food that had but recently arrived to England, but was already on its way to popularity. A team of Folger researchers…