Shakespeare's Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare

There's lots of fascinating insight here into how the First Folio was put together. This ranges from the personal connections between the printers/ publishers to the actual physical process of putting a book together.

As the sources can be frustratingly incomplete, the author's arguments often are 'possible' rather than anything more than this. He believes Shakespeare may have been trying to put a folio together at the time of his death, and creates a picture of the different compositors who worked on the folio (despite acknowledging that theories vary). I thought he was particularly good at explaining the different possible influences on the 'original' plays Shakespeare wrote, from the actors who inherited the scripts to the changing show more censorship laws, changes made due to revivals of the original plays and political sensitivities, to the compositors trying to get the whole play on a set number of pages. I loved the reproductions of the existing copies of the folios, where people had annotated the plays (in one case, with whether they knew the actors or not). The bit at the end about the ways the folios had been used by colonial governors to prop up colonial education projects felt a bit tacked on, but I can imagine this could be easily picked up in other texts. show less

Chris Laoutaris had the interesting idea of bringing together the various people and events that went towards the creation and publication of the First Folio. He tells the story clearly and keeps our attention without much resort to over dramatisation (although there are a few irritating moments, such as a ‘trembling’ Shakespeare amending his will). I don’t think there is anything here which really counts as original (unsurprisingly) and Laoutaris probably over-hypes his claim about the importance of the death of Burbage as a pivotal moment but I mostly enjoyed this light read. There are many, many plates of the First Folio included. For all I know they have been fantastically reproduced in the printed copy but as usual in the show more ebook version low quality images have been slung in without much care. show less

Fascinating story of the printing of the First Folio. Explains the process of printing the book, and the perons involved. Also explains the difficulties of establishing copyright and best version of each play. At times lacks focus with the interplay with Elizabethan and Jacobean life and politics. But a significant piece of research ; the Acknowledgements, Tables, Notes, Bibliography and Index total more 150 pages