Shakespeare's Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio by Chris Laoutaris (signed by the author)

2023 marks the 400th anniversary of Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known today simply as the First Folio. It’s difficult to imagine a world without The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale and Macbeth, but these are just some of the plays that were only preserved thanks to the astounding labour of love that went into creating the first collection.

Shakespeare's Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio charts the manufacture of the First Folio against a turbulent backdrop of political events and international tensions that intersected with the lives of its creators. It uncovers the friendships, bonds, social ties and professional networks that facilitated the production of Shakespeare’s book, as well as the personal challenges, tragedies and dangers that threatened its completion. Laoutaris also considers how Shakespeare himself, before his death, may have influenced the ways in which his own public identity would come to be enshrined in the First Folio, shaping the transmission of his legacy and determining how the world would remember him ‘not of an age, but for all time’.

Signed by the author

‌

Published by William Collins

Hardback

ISBN 9780008238384