Folger Shakespeare Library

▪ research centre, Washington, District of Columbia, United States

      research centre in Washington, D.C., for the study of William Shakespeare (Shakespeare, William), his contemporaries, Elizabethan society and culture, and 15th- through 18th-century British drama, literature, and history. The library, with approximately 280,000 books and manuscripts, possesses an unrivaled collection of Shakespeare's work—79 copies of the First Folio (1623), 118 copies of the later folios, and about 7,000 other Shakespeare editions—and constitutes the second largest collection of English books printed prior to 1641. It also possesses world-famous collections of 18th- and 19th-century book illustrations and theatrical materials (such as theatre playbills, theatre programs, promptbooks, and costumes); 16th- and 17th-century French political pamphlets; tracts by various Reformation leaders, including Martin Luther (Luther, Martin); and materials associated with Desiderius Erasmus (Erasmus, Desiderius) and John Dryden (Dryden, John). The library also contains musical instruments, costumes, and films.

      Completed in 1932 and administered by the trustees of Amherst College, the library is named after Henry Clay Folger (Folger, Henry Clay), a Standard Oil Company of New York executive whose will bequeathed his Shakespeare collection to the American people and provided the necessary funds to house, maintain, and expand it. The reading room is open to advanced scholars; it is open to the public only one day each year, on Shakespeare's birthday, which the library celebrates with Renaissance music, song, and dance. An exhibition gallery and a model Elizabethan theatre are open to the public. Publications include a Folger Facsimile series, a series of booklets for the general reader, and Shakespeare Quarterly. The Folger Institute, founded in 1970 by the Folger Shakespeare Library and a consortium of universities, is a multidisciplinary centre for advanced study in the humanities.

Additional Reading

Esther Ferington, Infinite Variety: Exploring the Folger Shakespeare Library (2002); Betty Ann Kane, The Widening Circle: The Story of the Folger Shakespeare Library and Its Collections (1976); and William L. Pressly, A Catalogue of Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library (1993).

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