Shakespeare's First Folio 1623-2023

If you are a printmaker or a bibliophile, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre has an interesting exhibit on the history of making Shakespeare's First Folio.

They show a model of the printing press used in 1623.

They explain how the metal type was arranged.

They examined a  passage from Richard II that appears in the First Folio.

How rags were used to create paper.

Printed in London in 1623, the First Folio reproduced 18 plays for the first time, and without it they may have been lost forever.  Possibly around 750 copies of what is know known as the First Folio were printed, securing Shakespeare's legacy as a playwright.  About a third of these survive today in varying degrees of completeness and condition.

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