Andrea Mays

Digging this book out of my long library hold list and finally reading it dispelled any misgivings I have about letting things sit on my list for years. Thank you, library system, for never letting holds expire!
I don’t remember what originally got this book on my radar, but it finally floated into my notice this year, and I’m glad it did. My last nonfiction chapter-a-day book had its moments but was mostly kind of a slog, so this was a refreshing change.
I saw a play last year called “The Book of Will,” which was about how Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors, John Hemmings and Henry Condell, assembled and published his collected plays into the First Folio. I’d never heard the story before, and it was fascinating and moving. To think—if they hadn’t loved him the way they did and wanted to preserve his works for posterity—Shakespeare was already dead when they conceived the project—we may have never known about these plays or their author.
The first few chapters of this book are about Hemmings and Condell and the publication of the First Folio, the nature of book publishing at the time, and the ensuing versions of the folio (there were four, but each one was less accurate and valuable than the first). These absorbing chapters were my favorites of the book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the way through.
The rest of the book is about Henry Folger—his growing interest in Shakespeariana, especially First Folios, and how it grew into obsessive, relentless collecting. By the end of his life, he had collected 82 First Folios, the largest private collection of them in the world. Along the way, the author paints a picture of Folger’s life: his marriage, his rising career with Standard Oil and his friendship with Rockefeller, his secretive collecting practices, and ultimately, his plan to house his collection in a library, rather than stashing it away in warehouses.
He and his wife were interesting individuals, and although the snapping up of so many First Folios struck me as somewhat greedy—I was glad when the Bodleian beat him out for a precious First Folio—they were portrayed as surprisingly down-to-earth and likable. His history with Standard Oil was less interesting to me, but the author didn’t linger on it any longer than was necessary.
Highly recommended to Shakespeare fans and folks who are interested in the history of publishing and book collecting. Great read!… (more)

I could not put this book down. Real history, meaningful history, intrigue, passion, greed, envy, money, politics, scholarship, love, compulsion are all in this book. The author is clear, precise and insightful. She writes with a plan and flow which kept the story flowing and moving, dropping fascinating tidbits as she invoked my compulsive reading. Many may not be as enthralled and I have always struggled in reading or watching Shakespeare so it was the history and the players that snagged me. This was one of the most fun books I have read in a long time!… (more)