Title page of First Folio with illustration of William Shakespeare.

Title page with Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare, Shakespeare First Folio, 1623. Folger Shakespeare Library.

First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare

August 9-31, 2016 

First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, will be open to the public at the CU Art Museum August 9-31, 2016. The First Folio is the first complete collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623, seven years after his death. Compiled by two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors, it preserves 36 of Shakespeare’s plays. Without it, we would not have 18 of those plays, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra.

The First Folio itself was opened to the most quoted line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “to be or not to be.” A multi-panel exhibition exploring Shakespeare’s impact, then and now, was accompanied by digital content and interactive activities.  

Learn about the months of programming that celebrated the arrival of the First Folio at the website: Shakespeare at CU.

View images of the exhibition installation here. 

First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, was a national travelling exhibition organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, to commemorate the 400th anniversary in 2016 of Shakespeare’s death. It was produced in association with the American Library Association and Cincinnati Museum Center. First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and by the generous support of Google.org and Vinton and Sigrid Cerf, the British Council, Stuart and Mimi Rose, and other generous donors.