Announced in 1622: A book now known as the First Folio
Greg Prickman explains how news of the 1623 book we now call the First Folio appeared a year earlier, on the occasion of a trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany.
Quiz: Games, sports, and Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s plays are full of sports and games. Test your knowledge with these questions.
“According to the scrip”: Shakespeare’s text from cue scripts to promptbooks and beyond
Brittany N. Williams looks at cue scripts and their importance to actors in Shakespeare’s time.
Visualizing Race Virtually: Exploring the art of Shakespeare
David Sterling Brown writes about the images and ideas presented in his virtual-reality exhibition, which features art from the Folger collection.
A game of chess
Take a closer look at some unusual chess sets in the Folger collection, spanning continents and centuries.
Love-in-idleness, Part One: Adapting an early modern recipe for heartsease cordial
Marissa Nicosia adapts an early modern recipe for heartsease cordial. This purple pansy syrup was used to “clear the heart” – to treat the chest and lungs or to reduce fever – but also for healing heartaches.
Folger Finds: Edwin Booth's royal tunic
Marking the anniversary of actor Edwin Booth’s birth on November 13, 1833, we explore a stunning historical costume from the Folger collection: an embroidered-velvet tunic that Booth wore onstage as King Richard III.
Five Faces of Shakespeare
Among the many treasures of the Folger is a lavish “Cosway binding” that includes five unique miniatures by a 20th-century British artist, “Miss C. B. Currie,” based on the images from the book itself. One of the oddest to modern…
Explore promptbooks from the 1950s festival Shakespeare Under the Stars
The Folger collection contains a number of prompt books from Shakespeare Under the Stars productions, which were gifts from Arthur Lithgow.
What's my line? Exploring promptbooks for Othello
Promptbooks let us peer into the minds of some of history’s greatest theater-makers and see how they imagined Shakespeare’s plays.
The game's the thing
See examples of creative and beautifully illustrated card games and board games in the Folger collection that use Shakespeare quotes and make references to his plays.
Play scripts as you like them
Promptbooks help stage managers and actors keep their, er, act straight. Explore these ‘As You Like It’ promptbooks from the Folger collection.