Earlier this year I wrote what I remember to have been a fairly extensive entry relating to the 400th anniversary of the printing of the so-called ‘First Folio’ of Shakespeare’s plays. Looking for it today, I am mortified – radically overly stated perhaps but nevertheless appropriately theatrical in tenor – to discover it has disappeared! I do know that it was written during a period of preoccupation with the Bard (a not uncommon thing) around about the time I read Hamnet and heard about (then later acquired) Greg Doran’s My Shakespeare – A Director’s Journey through the First Folio.
Of all days – today! There has been of course much ado during this whole year, now all but gone, but the book was entered into the Stationers’ Register on 8 November 1623 so this is a good book end, so to speak.
So it is, and belatedly, that I refer again to the magnificent site, Folio 400: Printing Shakespeare set-up to inform and help navigate through all the celebratory events. An invaluable resource; that it, too, may have a long life! Their mission is self-explanatory:
The First Folio is one of the great wonders of the literary world.
Published in 1623, seven years after the death of its author, it was the first printed edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays. Without this achievement, we would have lost half of his dramatic work.
This website is dedicated in gratitude to the 400th birthday of this foundational book on the 8th November 2023.
folio400.com
To end, as I began, on a theatrical note. On the BBC site, media editor Katy Razzall talks to David Tennant about what Shakespeare means to him and his upcoming role as Macbeth at the Donmar – sold out, but of course! And, as we lick our wounds, we are left with the special treat of Tennant’s recitation of a Macbeth soliquay (Act 1 Scene 7). (Embedded below.)
Every day is Shakespeare day, but today most especially.