The copies

We present here two copies of Shakespeare's First Folio. The First Folio is the first collected edition of William Shakespeare's plays, collated and published in 1623, seven years after his death. Folio editions were large and expensive books that were seen as prestige items.

The first, the Bodleian’s First Folio, has an unusual history: it was acquired by the Bodleian when it was printed in 1623, then sold off a few decades later, then rediscovered and repurchased for the Bodleian through a crowdfunding campaign in the early 1900s. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, another public campaign in 2012 raised funds for the Bodleian to stabilize and digitize the First Folio.

The second copy we present was donated to Miami University in 1949 by Dr. O. O. Fisher. Fisher was a Miami alumnus (class of '09) who went on to become an industrial surgeon and an avid book collector. The First Folio is from the matched set once owned by Lord Leigh.