Shakespeare in the world

America’s Shakespeare: How George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams quoted Shakespeare during and after the American Revolution.

“Extremity is the trier of spirits/ Common chances common men will bear.” Quoting from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Abigail Adams praised the courage of the militiamen at the Battle of Bunker Hill in a letter to her husband, John Adams, in 1775. From the…

“If music be the food of love, play on…” At the National Music Museum in South Dakota, Shakespeare’s First Folio is surrounded by musical instruments from the playwright’s era, including the only English-made Renaissance cittern (c. 1579) known to survive…

This Marlon Brando costume is on display with the First Folio exhibition at Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, IL. From a Hot Pepper Shakespeare contest to a Romeo and Juliet masquerade ball, the party doesn’t stop. These First Folio…

Abraham Lincoln. Copyright 1894 by H.W. Fay. Folger Shakespeare Library. Growing up on the frontier, Abraham Lincoln had few books to read in his early days—but among them were the works of Shakespeare, which Lincoln cherished throughout his life. The…

Over the course of 2016, the Folger Shakespeare Library is sending a First Folio to all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. Each month we’ll be checking in on the progress of this traveling exhibition, First Folio! The Book that Gave…

How did you first encounter Shakespeare? Was it in a classroom or a theater? How old were you? Was it love at first sight, or did it take you some time to warm up to the Bard? Did any particular lines or…

A late eighteenth-century Shakespeare art museum is experiencing a second life as a detailed online re-creation, the brainchild of University of Texas English professor Janine Barchas.  John Boydell, a British publisher, commissioned depictions of Shakespeare scenes from well-known artists of the day: Joshua…