Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare , commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio , published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is considered one of the most influential books ever published.
123-413: Printed in folio format and containing 36 of Shakespeare's plays , it was prepared by Shakespeare's colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell . It was dedicated to the "incomparable pair of brethren" William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke , and his brother Philip Herbert , Earl of Montgomery (later 4th Earl of Pembroke). Although 19 of Shakespeare's plays had been published in quarto before 1623,
246-475: A First Folio. It had been donated to the museum in 1936 by a local mill owner. This copy is missing its introductory pages and all the comedies. On 13 July 2006, a complete copy of the First Folio owned by Dr Williams's Library was auctioned at Sotheby's auction house. The book, which was in its original 17th-century binding, sold for £2,808,000, less than Sotheby's top estimate of £3.5 million. This copy
369-504: A Tuticanus, whose name, Ovid complains, does not fit into meter. The final poem is addressed to an enemy whom Ovid implores to leave him alone. The last elegiac couplet is translated: "Where's the joy in stabbing your steel into my dead flesh?/ There's no place left where I can be dealt fresh wounds." One loss, which Ovid himself described, is the first five-book edition of the Amores , from which nothing has come down to us. The greatest loss
492-651: A binding. These editions were primarily intended to be cheap and convenient, and read until worn out or repurposed as wrapping paper (or worse), rather than high quality objects kept in a library. Customers who wanted to keep a particular play would have to have it bound, and would typically bind several related or miscellany plays into one volume. Octavos, though nominally cheaper to produce, were somewhat different. From c. 1595–96 ( Venus and Adonis ) and 1598 ( The Rape of Lucrece ), Shakespeare's narrative poems were published in octavo. In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio , Tara L. Lyons argues that this
615-416: A booklet-like quire or gathering of 6 leaves, 12 pages. Once printed, the "sixes" were assembled and bound together to make the book. The sheets were printed in 2-page formes, meaning that pages 1 and 12 of the first quire were printed simultaneously on one side of one sheet of paper (which became the "outer" side); then pages 2 and 11 were printed on the other side of the same sheet (the "inner" side). The same
738-629: A business partner of another Jaggard, William's brother John. The printing of the Folio was probably done between February 1622 and early November 1623, and the book was entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623 ( Julian calendar ). It is possible that the printer originally expected to have the book ready early, since it was listed in the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue as a book to appear between April and October 1622, but
861-421: A collection of twenty-one poems in elegiac couplets. The Heroides take the form of letters addressed by famous mythological characters to their partners expressing their emotions at being separated from them, pleas for their return, and allusions to their future actions within their own mythology. The authenticity of the collection, partially or as a whole, has been questioned, although most scholars would consider
984-585: A conjectured £3.5 million from the sale of its First Folio to Sir Paul Getty in 2003. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, the Folger Shakespeare Library toured some of its 82 First Folios for display in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. In 2003, Anthony West identified a book previously thought to be a Second Folio in the collection of Craven Museum in Skipton, North Yorkshire, to be
1107-472: A doctor and utilizes medical imagery. Some have interpreted this poem as the close of Ovid's didactic cycle of love poetry and the end of his erotic elegiac project. The Metamorphoses , Ovid's most ambitious and well-known work, consists of a 15-book catalogue written in dactylic hexameter about transformations in Greek and Roman mythology set within a loose mytho-historical framework. The word "metamorphoses"
1230-445: A friend of poets in the circle of Maecenas . In Tristia 4.10.41–54, Ovid mentions friendships with Macer, Propertius , Ponticus and Bassus, and claims to have heard Horace recite. He only barely met Virgil and Tibullus , a fellow member of Messalla's circle, whose elegies he admired greatly. He married three times and had divorced twice by the time he was thirty. He had one daughter and grandchildren through her. His last wife
1353-466: A guardian to let the poet see Corinna, poem 6 is a lament for Corinna's dead parrot; poems 7 and 8 deal with Ovid's affair with Corinna's servant and her discovery of it, and 11 and 12 try to prevent Corinna from going on vacation. Poem 13 is a prayer to Isis for Corinna's illness, 14 a poem against abortion, and 19 a warning to unwary husbands. Book 3 has 15 poems. The opening piece depicts personified Tragedy and Elegy fighting over Ovid. Poem 2 describes
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#17327730793261476-464: A later addition to the corpus because they are never mentioned by Ovid and may or may not be spurious. The Heroides markedly reveal the influence of rhetorical declamation and may derive from Ovid's interest in rhetorical suasoriae , persuasive speeches, and ethopoeia , the practice of speaking in another character. They also play with generic conventions; most of the letters seem to refer to works in which these characters were significant, such as
1599-507: A lover; Ovid then digresses on the story of Vulcan's trap for Venus and Mars . The book ends with Ovid asking his "students" to spread his fame. Book 3 opens with a vindication of women's abilities and Ovid's resolution to arm women against his teaching in the first two books. Ovid gives women detailed instructions on appearance telling them to avoid too many adornments. He advises women to read elegiac poetry, learn to play games, sleep with people of different ages, flirt, and dissemble. Throughout
1722-441: A month before the book went on sale; most of the work in the project must have been done by his son Isaac. The First Folio's publishing syndicate also included two stationers who owned the rights to some of the individual plays that had been previously printed: William Aspley ( Much Ado About Nothing and Henry IV, Part 2 ) and John Smethwick ( Love's Labour's Lost , Romeo and Juliet , and Hamlet ). Smethwick had been
1845-450: A noon tryst, introduces Corinna by name. Poems 8 and 9 deal with Corinna selling her love for gifts, while 11 and 12 describe the poet's failed attempt to arrange a meeting. Poem 14 discusses Corinna's disastrous experiment in dyeing her hair and 15 stresses the immortality of Ovid and love poets. The second book has 19 pieces; the opening poem tells of Ovid's abandonment of a Gigantomachy in favor of elegy . Poems 2 and 3 are entreaties to
1968-511: A piece on the Rape of the Sabine women , Pasiphaë , and Ariadne . Book 2 invokes Apollo and begins with a telling of the story of Icarus . Ovid advises men to avoid giving too many gifts, keep up their appearance, hide affairs, compliment their lovers, and ingratiate themselves with slaves to stay on their lover's good side. The care of Venus for procreation is described as is Apollo's aid in keeping
2091-528: A place among the chief Roman elegists Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, of whom he saw himself as the fourth member. By AD 8, Ovid had completed Metamorphoses , a hexameter epic poem in 15 books, which comprehensively catalogs the metamorphoses in Greek and Roman mythology, from the emergence of the cosmos to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar . The stories follow each other in the telling of human beings transformed to new bodies: trees, rocks, animals, flowers, constellations , etc. Simultaneously, he worked on
2214-468: A poem about the Roman calendar, of which only the first six books exist – January through June. He learned Sarmatian and Getic . The five books of the elegiac Tristia , a series of poems expressing the poet's despair in exile and advocating his return to Rome, are dated to AD 9–12. The Ibis , an elegiac curse poem attacking an unnamed adversary, may also be dated to this period. The Epistulae ex Ponto ,
2337-405: A poem against criticism (9), and a dream of Cupid (3). Book 4, the final work of Ovid, in 16 poems talks to friends and describes his life as an exile further. Poems 10 and 13 describe Winter and Spring at Tomis, poem 14 is halfhearted praise for Tomis, 7 describes its geography and climate, and 4 and 9 are congratulations on friends for their consulships and requests for help. Poem 12 is addressed to
2460-567: A preface to the folio with this poem addressed "To the Reader" facing the Droeshout portrait engraving: This Figure, that thou here ſeeſt put, It vvas for gentle Shakeſpeare cut; Wherein the Grauer had a ſtrife vvith Nature, to out-doo the life : O, could he but haue dravvne his vvit As vvell in braſſe, as he hath hit His face;
2583-565: A previously unrecorded copy once owned by 19th-century collector Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh-Evelyn would be auctioned on 25 May 2016. According to the Antiques Trade Gazette , an American collector paid £1,600,000 for it; the buyer also successfully bid on copies of the second, third, and fourth folios. In April 2016 another new discovery was announced, a First Folio having been found in Mount Stuart House on
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#17327730793262706-464: A script that is read from right to left, such as Hebrew and Arabic . Third, folio is also used as an approximate term for a size of book, typically about 15 inches (38 cm) tall, and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as is the case for many modern books. Other common book formats are quarto and octavo , which are both also printing formats, involving two and three folds in
2829-750: A series of letters to friends in Rome asking them to effect his return, are thought to be his last compositions, with the first three books published in AD 13 and the fourth book between AD 14 and 16. The exile poetry is particularly emotive and personal. In the Epistulae he claims friendship with the natives of Tomis (in the Tristia they are frightening barbarians) and to have written a poem in their language ( Ex Ponto , 4.13.19–20). Yet he pined for Rome – and for his third wife, addressing many poems to her. Some are also to
2952-472: A series of supports and refutations in the short space of five years. Among the supporting reasons Brown presents are: Ovid's exile is only mentioned by his own work, except in "dubious" passages by Pliny the Elder and Statius , but no other author until the 4th century; that the author of Heroides was able to separate the poetic "I" of his own and real life; and that information on the geography of Tomis
3075-529: A significant year in Roman politics. Along with his brother, who excelled at oratory, Ovid was educated in rhetoric in Rome under the teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro . His father wanted him to study rhetoric so that he might practice law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, not the argumentative pole of rhetoric. Following the death of his brother at 20 years of age, Ovid renounced law and travelled to Athens , Asia Minor , and Sicily . He held minor public posts, as one of
3198-487: A smaller typeface) or abbreviating the text. [Publish me in] the Smallest size, Least I bee eaten vnder Pippin-pyes. Or in th’ Apothicaryes shop bee seene To wrap Drugg's: or to dry Tobacco in. First (might I chuse) I would be bound to wipe, Where he discharged last his Glister-pipe. Editions of individual plays were typically published in quarto and could be bought for 6 d (equivalent to £6 in 2023) without
3321-420: A source for a printed text. The label Q n denotes the n th quarto edition of a play. Troilus and Cressida was originally intended to follow Romeo and Juliet , but the typesetting was stopped, probably due to a conflict over the rights to the play; it was later inserted as the first of the tragedies, when the rights question was resolved. It does not appear in the table of contents. Ben Jonson wrote
3444-463: A superseded edition when the Third Folio became available in 1663/1664). The 36 plays of the First Folio occur in the order given below; plays that had never been published before 1623 are marked with an asterisk. Each play is followed by the type of source used, as determined by bibliographical research. The term foul papers refers to Shakespeare's working drafts of a play. When completed,
3567-405: A teacher of love. Ovid describes the places one can go to find a lover, like the theater, a triumph, which he thoroughly describes, or arena – and ways to get the girl to take notice, including seducing her covertly at a banquet. Choosing the right time is significant, as is getting into her associates' confidence. Ovid emphasizes care of the body for the lover. Mythological digressions include
3690-406: A theory that is little considered among scholars of Latin civilization today: that Ovid was never exiled from Rome and that all of his exile works are the result of his fertile imagination. This theory was supported and rejected in the 1930s, especially by Dutch authors. In 1985, a research paper by Fitton Brown advanced new arguments in support of Hartman's theory. Brown's article was followed by
3813-399: A time. As a result, it became nearly impossible to determine the actual format (i.e., number of leaves formed from each sheet fed into a press). The term "folio" as applied to such books may refer simply to the size, i.e., books that are approximately 15 inches (38 cm) tall. At present, the term folio in the context of paper size is commonly used to refer to foolscap folio , which
First Folio - Misplaced Pages Continue
3936-410: A transcript or fair copy of the foul papers would be prepared, by the author or by a scribe. Such a manuscript would have to be heavily annotated with accurate and detailed stage directions and all the other data needed for performance, and then could serve as a prompt book , to be used by the prompter to guide a performance of the play. Any of these manuscripts, in any combination, could be used as
4059-464: A visit to the races, 3 and 8 focus on Corinna's interest in other men, 10 is a complaint to Ceres because of her festival that requires abstinence, 13 is a poem on a festival of Juno , and 9 a lament for Tibullus . In poem 11 Ovid decides not to love Corinna any longer and regrets the poems he has written about her. The final poem is Ovid's farewell to the erotic muse. Critics have seen the poems as highly self-conscious and extremely playful specimens of
4182-433: Is 12 x 17.5 inches (307 x 445 mm), a "double folio" size. Several such folded conjugate pairs of leaves were inserted inside one another to produce the sections or gatherings, which were then sewn together to form the final book. Shakespeare's First Folio edition is printed as a folio and has a page height of 12.5 inches (320 mm), making it a rather small folio size. Folios were a common format of books printed in
4305-454: Is Ovid's only tragedy, Medea , from which only a few lines are preserved. Quintilian admired the work a great deal and considered it a prime example of Ovid's poetic talent. Lactantius quotes from a lost translation by Ovid of Aratus ' Phaenomena , although the poem's ascription to Ovid is insecure because it is never mentioned in Ovid's other works. A line from a work entitled Epigrammata
4428-400: Is a didactic elegiac poem in three books that sets out to teach the arts of seduction and love. The first book addresses men and teaches them how to seduce women, the second, also to men, teaches how to keep a lover. The third addresses women and teaches seduction techniques. The first book opens with an invocation to Venus, in which Ovid establishes himself as a praeceptor amoris (1.17) –
4551-491: Is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti . His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages , and greatly influenced Western art and literature . The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today. Ovid wrote more about his own life than most other Roman poets. Information about his biography
4674-474: Is drawn primarily from his poetry, especially Tristia 4.10, which gives a lengthy autobiographical account of his life. Other sources include Seneca the Elder and Quintilian . Ovid was born in the Paelignian town of Sulmo (modern-day Sulmona , in the province of L'Aquila , Abruzzo), in an Apennine valley east of Rome , to an important equestrian family, the gens Ovidia , on 20 March 43 BC –
4797-601: Is going to use his abilities to hurt his enemy. He cites Callimachus' Ibis as his inspiration and calls all the gods to make his curse effective. Ovid uses mythical exempla to condemn his enemy in the afterlife, cites evil prodigies that attended his birth, and then in the next 300 lines wishes that the torments of mythological characters befall his enemy. The poem ends with a prayer that the gods make his curse effective. The Tristia consist of five books of elegiac poetry composed by Ovid in exile in Tomis. Book 1 contains 11 poems;
4920-545: Is of Greek origin and means "transformations". Appropriately, the characters in this work undergo many different transformations. Within an extent of nearly 12,000 verses, almost 250 different myths are mentioned. Each myth is set outdoors where the mortals are often vulnerable to external influences. The poem stands in the tradition of mythological and etiological catalogue poetry such as Hesiod 's Catalogue of Women , Callimachus ' Aetia , Nicander 's Heteroeumena , and Parthenius ' Metamorphoses . The first book describes
5043-504: Is one of only about 40 remaining complete copies (most of the existing copies are incomplete); only one other copy of the book remains in private ownership. On 11 July 2008, it was reported that a copy stolen from Durham University , England, in 1998 had been recovered after being submitted for valuation at the Folger Shakespeare Library. News reports estimated the folio's value at anywhere from £250,000 in total for
First Folio - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-548: Is print paper sized 8.5×13.5 in (216×343 mm), slightly larger (by 18.7%) than A4 paper . From the earliest days of printing, folios were often used for expensive, prestigious volumes. In the seventeenth century, plays of the English Renaissance theatre were printed as collected editions in folio. Thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays, for example, were included in the First Folio collected edition of 1623, which
5289-504: Is then folded once to produce two leaves . Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet. Ordinarily, additional printed folio sheets would be inserted inside one another to form a group or "gathering" of leaves prior to binding the book. Second, folio is used in terms of page numbering for some books and most manuscripts that are bound but without page numbers as an equivalent of "page" (both sides), "sheet" or "leaf", using " recto " and " verso " to designate
5412-426: Is then folded one time to produce two leaves. Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet. This contrasts with a quarto , folding each sheet twice, and octavo , folding each sheet three times. Unlike the folio, these last, and further types involving more folds, require the pages of the book to be cut open after binding, which might be done mechanically by the printer, but in historic books
5535-521: Is turned over "f1 v." is on the left and "f2 r." on the right of the "opening", or two pages that are visible. For books in Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and other languages, where the book is begun from the back in Western terms, with the open page edges at the reader's left, the numbering also follows the sequence in which the reader encounters. In the discussion of two-columned manuscripts, a/b/c/d can denote
5658-601: The Ars Amatoria (the Art of Love ), a parody of didactic poetry and a three-book manual about seduction and intrigue, which has been dated to AD 2 (Books 1–2 would go back to 1 BC ). Ovid may identify this work in his exile poetry as the carmen , or song, which was one cause of his banishment. The Ars Amatoria was followed by the Remedia Amoris in the same year. This corpus of elegiac, erotic poetry earned Ovid
5781-688: The Ars Amatoria concerned the serious crime of adultery . He may have been banished for these works, which appeared subversive to the emperor's moral legislation. However, in view of the long time that elapsed between the publication of this work (1 BC) and the exile (AD 8), some authors suggest that Augustus used the poem as a mere justification for something more personal. In exile, Ovid wrote two poetry collections, Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto , which illustrated his sadness and desolation. Being far from Rome, he had no access to libraries, and thus might have been forced to abandon his Fasti ,
5904-651: The Aeneid in the case of Dido and Catullus 64 for Ariadne, and transfer characters from the genres of epic and tragedy to the elegiac genre of the Heroides . The letters have been admired for their deep psychological portrayals of mythical characters, their rhetoric, and their unique attitude to the classical tradition of mythology. They also contribute significantly to conversations on how gender and identity were constructed in Augustan Rome. A popular quote from
6027-462: The Fasti , a six-book poem in elegiac couplets on the theme of the calendar of Roman festivals and astronomy. The composition of this poem was interrupted by Ovid's exile, and it is thought that Ovid abandoned work on the piece in Tomis. It is probably in this period that the double letters (16–21) in the Heroides were composed, although there is some contention over their authorship. In AD 8, Ovid
6150-500: The tresviri capitales , as a member of the Centumviral court and as one of the decemviri litibus iudicandis , but resigned to pursue poetry probably around 29–25 BC, a decision of which his father apparently disapproved. Ovid's first recitation has been dated to around 25 BC, when he was eighteen. He was part of the circle centered on the esteemed patron Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus , and likewise seems to have been
6273-500: The Ars Amatoria , and is primarily addressed to men. The poem criticizes suicide as a means for escaping love and, invoking Apollo, goes on to tell lovers not to procrastinate and be lazy in dealing with love. Lovers are taught to avoid their partners, not perform magic, see their lover unprepared, take other lovers, and never be jealous. Old letters should be burned and the lover's family avoided. The poem throughout presents Ovid as
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#17327730793266396-561: The British Library (5) in London . The Folger collection alone accounts for more than one third of all known surviving copies. Together, the nine largest First Folio collections comprise more than half of all known extant copies. Thirty-one American colleges and universities own a total of thirty-eight copies of the First Folio, while seven British universities own fourteen copies. Universities in possession of multiple copies include
6519-604: The Church of the Holy Trinity two days later. Shakespeare's works—both poetic and dramatic—had a rich history in print before the publication of the First Folio: from the first publications of Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594), 78 individual printed editions of his works are known. Of these, 23 are his poetry and the remaining 55 his plays. Counting by number of editions published before 1623,
6642-473: The Isle of Bute , Scotland . It was authenticated by Professor Emma Smith of Oxford University. The Folio originally belonged to Isaac Reed . Folio (printing) The term " folio " (from Latin folium 'leaf' ) has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing : first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding
6765-550: The Metamorphoses , scholars have focused on Ovid's organization of his vast body of material. The ways that stories are linked by geography, themes, or contrasts creates interesting effects and constantly forces the reader to evaluate the connections. Ovid also varies his tone and material from different literary genres; G. B. Conte has called the poem "a sort of gallery of these various literary genres". In this spirit, Ovid engages creatively with his predecessors, alluding to
6888-509: The Metamorphoses , the Fasti was to be a long poem and emulated etiological poetry by writers like Callimachus and, more recently, Propertius and his fourth book. The poem goes through the Roman calendar, explaining the origins and customs of important Roman festivals, digressing on mythical stories, and giving astronomical and agricultural information appropriate to the season. The poem was probably dedicated to Augustus initially, but perhaps
7011-652: The National Library of Chile , in Santiago . The First Folio is one of the most valuable printed books in the world: a copy sold at Christie's in New York in October 2001 made $ 6.16 million hammer price (then £3.73m). In October 2020, a copy sold by Mills College at Christie's fetched a price of $ 10 million, making it the most expensive work of literature ever auctioned. Oriel College, Oxford , raised
7134-478: The University of Cambridge (4), the University of Oxford (4), the University of Texas at Austin (3), Princeton University (3), Brown University (2), Harvard University (2), the University of London (2), Yale University (1) and Carnegie Mellon University (2). Three are also in the possession of the University of California system, with one each at UC Berkeley , UCLA , and UC Irvine . In Canada,
7257-510: The University of Nevada, Reno , one of the world's foremost authorities on Shakespeare. The title page and introductory material are missing. The name "Neville", written on the first surviving page, may indicate that it once belonged to Edward Scarisbrick , who fled England due to anti-Catholic repression , attended the Jesuit Saint-Omer College , and was known to use that alias. In March 2016, Christie's announced that
7380-760: The University of Toronto 's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library owns one copy and the University of British Columbia another. Ireland's only copy resides in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin . A number of copies are held by public libraries. In the United States, the New York Public Library owns six copies. The Boston Public Library , Free Library of Philadelphia (a copy previously owned by John Milton and containing notes in his handwriting), Dallas Public Library , and Buffalo & Erie County Public Library each hold one copy. In
7503-476: The battle of the centaurs , and Iphigeneia . The thirteenth book discusses the contest over Achilles' arms , and Polyphemus . The fourteenth moves to Italy, describing the journey of Aeneas , Pomona and Vertumnus , and Romulus and Hersilia . The final book opens with a philosophical lecture by Pythagoras and the deification of Caesar . The end of the poem praises Augustus and expresses Ovid's belief that his poem has earned him immortality. In analyzing
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#17327730793267626-421: The incunabula period (books printed before 1501), although the earliest printed book, surviving only as a fragment of a leaf, is a quarto . The British Library Incunabula Short Title Catalogue currently lists about 28,100 different editions of surviving books, pamphlets and broadsides (some fragmentary only) printed before 1501, of which about 8,600 are folios, representing just over 30 percent of all works in
7749-614: The Emperor Augustus, yet others are to himself, to friends in Rome, and sometimes to the poems themselves, expressing loneliness and hope of recall from banishment or exile. The obscure causes of Ovid's exile have given rise to much speculation by scholars. The medieval texts that mention the exile offer no credible explanations: their statements seem incorrect interpretations drawn from the works of Ovid. Ovid himself wrote many references to his offense, giving obscure or contradictory clues. In 1923, scholar J. J. Hartman proposed
7872-551: The First Folio and all the other books and manuscripts stolen ( BBC News , 1998), up to $ 30 million ( The New York Times , 2008). Although the book, once the property of John Cosin the Bishop of Durham , was returned to the library, it had been mutilated and was missing its cover and title page. The folio was returned to public display on 19 June 2010 after its twelve-year absence. Fifty-three-year-old Raymond Scott received an eight-year prison sentence for handling stolen goods , but
7995-435: The First Folio is arguably the only reliable text for about 20 of the plays, and a valuable source text for many of those previously published. Eighteen of the plays in the First Folio, including The Tempest , Twelfth Night , Macbeth , Julius Caesar and Measure for Measure among others, are not known to have been previously printed. The Folio includes all of the plays generally accepted to be Shakespeare's, except
8118-486: The First Folio texts were set into type by five compositors , with different spelling habits, peculiarities, and levels of competence. Researchers have labelled them A through E, A being the most accurate, and E an apprentice who had significant difficulties in dealing with manuscript copy. Their shares in typesetting the pages of the Folio break down like this: Compositor "E" was most likely one John Leason, whose apprenticeship contract dated only from 4 November 1622. One of
8241-679: The First Folio. Knight is known to have been responsible for maintaining and annotating the company's scripts, and making sure that the company complied with cuts and changes ordered by the Master of the Revels . Some pages of the First Folio—134 out of the total of 900—were proofread and corrected while the job of printing the book was ongoing. As a result, the Folio differs from modern books in that individual copies vary considerably in their typographical errors. There were about 500 corrections made to
8364-477: The Folio in this way. These corrections by the typesetters, however, consisted only of simple typos, clear mistakes in their own work; the evidence suggests that they almost never referred back to their manuscript sources, let alone tried to resolve any problems in those sources. The well-known cruxes in the First Folio texts were beyond the typesetters' capacity to correct. The Folio was typeset and bound in "sixes"—3 sheets of paper, taken together, were folded into
8487-464: The Heroides anticipates Machiavelli's "the end justifies the means". Ovid had written "Exitus acta probat" – the result justifies the means. The Amores is a collection in three books of love poetry in elegiac meter, following the conventions of the elegiac genre developed by Tibullus and Propertius . Elegy originates with Propertius and Tibullus, but Ovid is an innovator in the genre. Ovid changes
8610-577: The Print vvould then ſurpaſſe All, that vvas euer vvrit in braſſe. But, ſince he cannot, Reader, looke Not on his Picture, but his Booke. B. I. As far as modern scholarship has been able to determine,
8733-895: The UK, the Library of Birmingham owns one copy. Additional copies are owned by the Huntington Library (4), The Shakespeare Centre (3), the Victoria and Albert Museum (3), Sutro Library (2), the Morgan Library and Museum (2), Newberry Library , Fondation Martin Bodmer , the State Library of New South Wales , the Auckland Central City Library , Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee , and
8856-471: The Younger and Agrippa Postumus (the latter adopted by him), were also banished around the same time. Julia's husband, Lucius Aemilius Paullus , was put to death for a conspiracy against Augustus , a conspiracy of which Ovid potentially knew. The Julian marriage laws of 18 BC , which promoted monogamous marriage to increase the population's birth rate, were fresh in the Roman mind. Ovid's writing in
8979-454: The best-selling works were Venus and Adonis (12 editions), The Rape of Lucrece (6 editions), and Henry IV, Part 1 (6 editions). Of the 23 editions of the poems, 16 were published in octavo ; the rest, and almost all of the editions of the plays, were printed in quarto . The quarto format was made by folding a large sheet of printing paper twice, forming 4 leaves with 8 pages. The average quarto measured 7 by 9 inches (18 by 23 cm) and
9102-687: The book were the booksellers Edward Blount and the father/son team of William and Isaac Jaggard . William Jaggard has seemed an odd choice by the King's Men because he had published the questionable collection The Passionate Pilgrim as Shakespeare's, and in 1619 had printed new editions of 10 Shakespearean quartos to which he did not have clear rights, some with false dates and title pages (the False Folio affair). Indeed, his contemporary Thomas Heywood , whose poetry Jaggard had pirated and misattributed to Shakespeare, specifically reports that Shakespeare
9225-419: The book, Ovid playfully interjects, criticizing himself for undoing all his didactic work to men and mythologically digresses on the story of Procris and Cephalus . The book ends with his wish that women will follow his advice and spread his fame saying Naso magister erat, "Ovid was our teacher". (Ovid was known as "Naso" to his contemporaries. ) This elegiac poem proposes a cure for the love Ovid teaches in
9348-550: The capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia , on the Black Sea , where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars. Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses , a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters . He
9471-553: The catalogue contained many books not yet printed by 1622, and the modern consensus is that the entry was simply intended as advance publicity. The first impression had a publication date of 1623, and the earliest record of a retail purchase is an account book entry for 5 December 1623 of Edward Dering (who purchased two); the Bodleian Library , in Oxford , received its copy in early 1624 (which it subsequently sold for £24 as
9594-411: The catalogue. In the discussion of manuscripts, a folio means a leaf with two pages, the recto being the first the reader encounters, and the verso the second. In Western books, which are read by turning the pages over from right to left, when the book is begun with the open page edges at the reader's right, the first page to be seen is "folio 1 recto", typically abbreviated to "f1 r.". When this page
9717-438: The compositors were setting type from manuscripts (perhaps messy, revised and corrected manuscripts), their calculations would frequently be off by greater or lesser amounts, resulting in the need to expand or compress. A line of verse could be printed as two; or verse could be printed as prose to save space, or lines and passages could even be omitted (a disturbing prospect for those who prize Shakespeare's works). The First Folio
9840-528: The date is uncertain as it depends on a notice in Am. 2.18.19–26 that seems to describe the collection as an early published work. The authenticity of some of these poems has been challenged, but this first edition probably contained the first 14 poems of the collection. The first five-book collection of the Amores , a series of erotic poems addressed to a lover, Corinna, is thought to have been published in 16–15 BC;
9963-567: The death of the emperor prompted Ovid to change the dedication to honor Germanicus . Ovid uses direct inquiry of gods and scholarly research to talk about the calendar and regularly calls himself a vates , a seer. He also seems to emphasize unsavory, popular traditions of the festivals, imbuing the poem with a popular, plebeian flavor, which some have interpreted as subversive to the Augustan moral legislation. While this poem has always been invaluable to students of Roman religion and culture for
10086-618: The elegiac genre. About a hundred elegiac lines survive from this poem on beauty treatments for women's faces, which seems to parody serious didactic poetry. The poem says that women should concern themselves first with manners and then prescribes several compounds for facial treatments before breaking off. The style is not unlike the shorter Hellenistic didactic works of Nicander and Aratus . Si quis in hoc artem populo non novit amandi, hoc legat et lecto carmine doctus amet. The Ars Amatoria
10209-466: The emperor for forgiveness. Book 3 in 14 poems focuses on Ovid's life in Tomis. The opening poem describes his book's arrival in Rome to find Ovid's works banned. Poems 10, 12, and 13 focus on the seasons spent in Tomis, 9 on the origins of the place, and 2, 3, and 11 his emotional distress and longing for home. The final poem is again an apology for his work. The fourth book has ten poems addressed mostly to friends. Poem 1 expresses his love of poetry and
10332-606: The extant copies are housed at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. , which is home to a total of 82 First Folios. After a long career as an actor, dramatist, and sharer in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men ) from c. 1585–90 until c. 1610–13 , William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon , on 23 April 1616, and was buried in the chancel of
10455-525: The first and second sides, and (unlike the usage in printing) disregarding whether the leaf concerned is actually physically still joined with another leaf. This usually appears abbreviated: "f26r." means the first side of the 26th leaf in a book. This will be on the right hand side of the opening of any book composed in a script that is read from left to right, such as Latin (as used in English), Cyrillic , or Greek , and will be opposite for books composed in
10578-501: The first piece is an address by Ovid to his book about how it should act when it arrives in Rome. Poem 3 describes his final night in Rome, poems 2 and 10 Ovid's voyage to Tomis, 8 the betrayal of a friend, and 5 and 6 the loyalty of his friends and wife. In the final poem Ovid apologizes for the quality and tone of his book, a sentiment echoed throughout the collection. Book 2 consists of one long poem in which Ovid defends himself and his poetry, uses precedents to justify his work, and begs
10701-464: The first semester of the year, with each book dedicated to a different month of the Roman calendar (January to June). The project seems unprecedented in Roman literature. It seems that Ovid planned to cover the whole year, but was unable to finish because of his exile, although he did revise sections of the work at Tomis, and he claims at Trist. 2.549–52 that his work was interrupted after six books. Like
10824-490: The following plays which are believed likely to have been written, at least partly, by Shakespeare; Pericles, Prince of Tyre , The Two Noble Kinsmen , Edward III , and the two lost plays , Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won . Some believe the last of these is an alternative title for a known published Shakespeare play. Of perhaps 750 copies printed, 235 are known to remain, most of which are kept in either public archives or private collections. More than one third of
10947-507: The formation of the world, the ages of man , the flood , the story of Daphne 's rape by Apollo and Io 's by Jupiter. The second book opens with Phaethon and continues describing the love of Jupiter with Callisto and Europa . The third book focuses on the mythology of Thebes with the stories of Cadmus , Actaeon , and Pentheus . The fourth book focuses on three pairs of lovers: Pyramus and Thisbe , Salmacis and Hermaphroditus , and Perseus and Andromeda . The fifth book focuses on
11070-475: The full spectrum of classical poetry. Ovid's use of Alexandrian epic, or elegiac couplets, shows his fusion of erotic and psychological style with traditional forms of epic. A concept drawn from the Metamorphoses is the idea of the white lie or pious fraud : "pia mendacia fraude". Six books in elegiacs survive of this second ambitious poem that Ovid was working on when he was exiled. The six books cover
11193-432: The historical Sappho to Phaon , seems spurious (although referred to in Am. 2.18) because of its length, its lack of integration in the mythological theme, and its absence from Medieval manuscripts. The final letters (16–21) are paired compositions comprising a letter to a lover and a reply. Paris and Helen , Hero and Leander , and Acontius and Cydippe are the addressees of the paired letters. These are considered
11316-412: The leader of his elegies from the poet, to Amor (Love or Cupid). This switch in focus from the triumphs of the poet, to the triumphs of love over people is the first of its kind for this genre of poetry. This Ovidian innovation can be summarized as the use of love as a metaphor for poetry. The books describe the many aspects of love and focus on the poet's relationship with a mistress called Corinna. Within
11439-400: The left- and right-hand columns of recto and verso pages (e.g. "f. 150a" and "f. 150b" are the left and right columns on the recto page, and "f. 150c" and "f. 150d" the left and right columns on the verso page). In the discussion of three-columned manuscripts, notation may make use of folio number + recto/verso + column a/b/c (e.g. "f. 3 v. col. c" references the third column on the verso side of
11562-535: The letters mentioned specifically in Ovid's description of the work at Am. 2.18.19–26 as safe from objection. The collection comprises a new type of generic composition without parallel in earlier literature. The first fourteen letters are thought to comprise the first published collection and are written by the heroines Penelope , Phyllis , Briseis , Phaedra , Oenone , Hypsipyle , Dido , Hermione , Deianeira , Ariadne , Canace , Medea , Laodamia , and Hypermnestra to their absent male lovers. Letter 15, from
11685-475: The men who would later be involved in publishing the First Folio. But quarto was the typical format for plays printed in the period: folio was a prestige format, typically used, according to Fredson Bowers , for books of "superior merit or some permanent value". The contents of the First Folio were compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell ; the members of the Stationers Company who published
11808-399: The mystery lurk, What others call a play you call a work. Publishing literary works in folio was not unprecedented. Starting with the publication of Sir Philip Sidney 's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1593) and Astrophel and Stella (1598), both published by William Ponsonby , there was a significant number of folios published, and a significant number of them were published by
11931-486: The octavo The Rape of Lucrece needed five sheets, versus 12 in quarto. Whatever the motivation, the move seems to have had the intended effect: Francis Meres , the first known literary critic to comment on Shakespeare, in his Palladis Tamia (1598), puts it thus: "the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare , witnes his Venus an d Adonis , his Lucrece , his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends". Pray tell me Ben, where does
12054-463: The other four might have been a John Shakespeare, of Warwickshire , who apprenticed with Jaggard in 1610 to 1617. ("Shakespeare" was a common name in Warwickshire in that era; John was of no known relation to the playwright.) W. W. Greg has argued that Edward Knight , the "book-keeper" or "book-holder" ( prompter ) of the King's Men , did the actual proofreading of the manuscript sources for
12177-566: The price of a single play and represented almost two months' wages for an ordinary skilled worker." It is believed that around 750 copies of the First Folio were printed, of which there are 235 known surviving copies. The world's largest collection is in the possession of the Folger Shakespeare Library (82 copies) in Washington, D.C. , followed by Meisei University (12) in Tokyo , the New York Public Library (6) in New York City , and
12300-483: The quality of his poetry. The Epistulae ex Ponto is a collection in four books of further poetry from exile. The Epistulae are each addressed to a different friend and focus more desperately than the Tristia on securing his recall from exile. The poems mainly deal with requests for friends to speak on his behalf to members of the imperial family, discussions of writing with friends, and descriptions of life in exile. The first book has ten pieces in which Ovid describes
12423-577: The rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them." The paper industry in England was then in its infancy and the quantity of quality rag paper for the book was imported from France. It is thought that the typesetting and printing of the First Folio was such a large job that the King's Men simply needed the capacities of the Jaggards' shop. William Jaggard was old, infirm and blind by 1623, and died
12546-443: The sheet only once, and a term for a book made in this way; second, it is a general term for a sheet, leaf or page in (especially) manuscripts and old books; and third, it is an approximate term for the size of a book , and for a book of this size. First, a folio (abbreviated fo or 2 ) is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets of paper, on each of which four pages of text are printed, two on each side; each sheet
12669-508: The sheet respectively. Famous folios (in both senses) include the Gutenberg Bible , printed in about 1455, and the First Folio collected edition of Shakespeare 's plays, printed in 1623; however, their actual size is rather different. A folio (from Latin foliō, abl. of folium, leaf ) is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets of paper, on each sheet of which four pages of text are printed, two on each side; each sheet
12792-438: The solace it brings; while 2 describes a triumph of Tiberius. Poems 3–5 are to friends, 7 a request for correspondence, and 10 an autobiography. The final book of the Tristia with 14 poems focuses on his wife and friends. Poems 4, 5, 11, and 14 are addressed to his wife, 2 and 3 are prayers to Augustus and Bacchus , 4 and 6 are to friends, 8 to an enemy. Poem 13 asks for letters, while 1 and 12 are apologies to his readers for
12915-521: The song of the Muses , which describes the rape of Proserpina . The sixth book is a collection of stories about the rivalry between gods and mortals, beginning with Arachne and ending with Philomela . The seventh book focuses on Medea , as well as Cephalus and Procris . The eighth book focuses on Daedalus ' flight, the Calydonian boar hunt, and the contrast between pious Baucis and Philemon and
13038-471: The state of his health (10), his hopes, memories, and yearning for Rome (3, 6, 8), and his needs in exile (3). Book 2 contains impassioned requests to Germanicus (1 and 5) and various friends to speak on his behalf at Rome while he describes his despair and life in exile. Book 3 has nine poems in which Ovid addresses his wife (1) and various friends. It includes a telling of the story of Iphigenia in Tauris (2),
13161-493: The surviving version, redacted to three books according to an epigram prefixed to the first book, is thought to have been published c. 8 –3 BC. Between the publications of the two editions of the Amores can be dated the premiere of his tragedy Medea , which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant. Ovid's next poem, the Medicamina Faciei (a fragmentary work on women's beauty treatments), preceded
13284-466: The third folio). The actual size of a folio book depends on the size of the full sheet of paper on which it was printed, and in older periods these were not standardized, so the term's meaning is only approximate. Historically, printers used a range of names such as (with approximate maximum page height): From the mid-nineteenth century, technology permitted the manufacture of large sheets or rolls of paper on which books were printed, many text pages at
13407-441: The various poems, several describe events in the relationship, thus presenting the reader with some vignettes and a loose narrative. Book 1 contains 15 poems. The first tells of Ovid's intention to write epic poetry, which is thwarted when Cupid steals a metrical foot from him, changing his work into love elegy. Poem 4 is didactic and describes principles that Ovid would develop in the Ars Amatoria . The fifth poem, describing
13530-427: The wealth of antiquarian material it preserves, it recently has been seen as one of Ovid's finest literary works and a unique contribution to Roman elegiac poetry. The Ibis is an elegiac poem in 644 lines, in which Ovid uses a dazzling array of mythic stories to curse and attack an enemy who is harming him in exile. At the beginning of the poem, Ovid claims that his poetry up to that point had been harmless, but now he
13653-425: The wicked Erysichthon . The ninth book focuses on Heracles and the incestuous Byblis . The tenth book focuses on stories of doomed love, such as Orpheus , who sings about Hyacinthus , as well as Pygmalion , Myrrha , and Adonis . The eleventh book compares the marriage of Peleus and Thetis with the love of Ceyx and Alcyone . The twelfth book moves from myth to history describing the exploits of Achilles ,
13776-683: Was reprinted three times in the 17th century, each time by different groups of stationers; these editions are referred to as the Second Folio , Third Folio, and Fourth Folio. Jean-Christophe Mayer, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio (2016), estimates the original retail price of the First Folio to be about 15 s (equivalent to £174 in 2023) for an unbound copy, and up to £ 1 (equivalent to £232 in 2023) for one bound in calfskin . In terms of purchasing power , "a bound folio would be about forty times
13899-443: Was "much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." Heminges and Condell emphasised that the Folio was replacing the earlier publications, which they characterised as "stol'n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors", asserting that Shakespeare's true words "are now offer'd to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all
14022-458: Was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus . He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace , with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature . The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists . Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis ,
14145-533: Was acquitted of the theft itself. A July 2010 BBC programme about the affair, Stealing Shakespeare , portrayed Scott as a fantasist and petty thief. In 2013, Scott killed himself in his prison cell. In November 2014, a previously unknown First Folio was found in a public library in Saint-Omer , Pas-de-Calais in France , where it had lain for 200 years. Confirmation of its authenticity came from Eric Rasmussen of
14268-505: Was already known by Virgil , by Herodotus and by Ovid himself in his Metamorphoses . Most scholars, however, oppose these hypotheses. One of the main arguments of these scholars is that Ovid would not let his Fasti remain unfinished, mainly because this poem meant his consecration as an imperial poet. Ovid died at Tomis in AD 17 or 18. It is thought that the Fasti , which he spent time revising, were published posthumously. The Heroides ("Heroines") or Epistulae Heroidum are
14391-534: Was banished to Tomis , on the Black Sea , by the exclusive intervention of the Emperor Augustus without any participation of the Senate or of any Roman judge . This event shaped all his following poetry. Ovid wrote that the reason for his exile was carmen et error – "a poem and a mistake", claiming that his crime was worse than murder, more harmful than poetry. The Emperor's grandchildren, Julia
14514-568: Was connected in some way to the influential gens Fabia and helped him during his exile in Tomis (now Constanța in Romania). Ovid spent the first 25 years of his literary career primarily writing poetry in elegiac meter with erotic themes. The chronology of these early works is not secure, but scholars have established tentative dates. His earliest extant work is thought to be the Heroides , letters of mythological heroines to their absent lovers, which may have been published in 19 BC, although
14637-422: Was done with pages 3 and 10, and 4 and 9, on the second sheet, and pages 5 and 8, and 6 and 7, on the third. Then the first quire could be assembled with its pages in the correct order. The next quire was printed by the same method: pages 13 and 24 on one side of one sheet, etc. This meant that the text being printed had to be "cast off"—the compositors had to plan beforehand how much text would fit onto each page. If
14760-456: Was followed by additional folio editions, referred to as the Second Folio , etc. Other playwrights in this period also published their plays in folio editions, such as Ben Jonson 's collected works of 1616. Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso ( Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs ɔˈwɪdiʊs ˈnaːso(ː)] ; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( / ˈ ɒ v ɪ d / OV -id ),
14883-426: Was often left for the reader to do with a paper-knife . There are variations in how folios are produced. For example, bibliographers call a book printed as a folio (two leaves per full sheet), but bound in gatherings of 8 leaves each, a "folio in 8s." The Gutenberg Bible was printed in about 1455 as a folio, in which four pages of text were printed on each sheet of paper, which were then folded once. The page size
15006-482: Was partly due to the publisher, John Harrison 's, desire to capitalize on the poems' association with Ovid : the Greek classics were sold in octavo, so printing Shakespeare's poetry in the same format would strengthen the association. The octavo generally carried greater prestige, so the format itself would help to elevate their standing. Ultimately, however, the choice was a financial one: Venus and Adonis in octavo needed four sheets of paper, versus seven in quarto, and
15129-455: Was typically made up of 9 sheets, giving 72 total pages. Octavos—made by folding a sheet of the same size three times, forming 8 leaves with 16 pages—were about half as large as a quarto. Since the cost of paper represented about 50-75% of a book's total production costs, octavos were generally cheaper to manufacture than quartos, and a common way to reduce publishing costs was to reduce the number of pages needed by compressing (using two columns or
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