Shakespeare first folio
UBC’s digital media plan for the Folio will not only engage new communities, but also amplify the value of one of the world’s most precious cultural treasures and make the wonder of Shakespeare accessible to everyone. UBC’s department of theatre and film, the emerging media lab at UBC, and the master of digital media program at the Centre for Digital Media plan to collaborate on augmented and virtual reality projects. The acquisition comes with a mandate to ensure public access to the unique volume. UBC’s acquisition of the Folio has placed this tangible piece of humanity’s heritage within reach for an enormous number of people who might otherwise have never had access to it. Photo of William Shakespeare’s First Folio, published in 1623, and gifted to the UBC Library. “Preserving this precious book in UBC Library makes it accessible for future generations, inspires new knowledge, and furthers our commitment to engage in world-class research in the arts and humanities,” said Santa J. This cultural treasure is only the second copy in Canada.
The nine copies in public collections on the west coast are all in California. “Adding a First Folio to the UBC Library collection represents a milestone in terms of our development as both a library and as a university.” Only 235 copies of the First Folio remain around the world, mostly in the U.K. “The First Folio is a cornerstone of English literature and with this donation, we are able to bring this cultural treasure into public ownership,” Kalsbeek said. Katherine Kalsbeek, head of rare books and special collections (RBSC) at UBC Library, knew that with so few copies left in private hands the library had to act. The opportunity to purchase a First Folio arose in early 2021. “We are deeply grateful to the many foundations and individual donors who have been essential in making an acquisition like this possible for a place like UBC Library and we are honoured to be its caretakers.” “In comparison to many of our peer institutions, we are a relatively young university library,” said University Librarian Dr. UBC purchased the First Folio, formerly owned by a private collector in the U.S., through Christie’s New York with funding provided by a consortium of donors from across North America and with the generous support of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The 1623 publication is considered the most authoritative of all early printings. The First Folio, as it’s also known, includes 36 of Shakespeare’s 38 known plays, edited by his close friends, fellow writers and actors.
#SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO HOW TO#
The videos below include an introduction to the Archives and basic and advanced tutorials on how to use them.The University of British Columbia has acquired a first edition of William Shakespeare’s Comedies Histories and Tragedies-an extremely rare book published seven years after Shakespeare’s death and credited with preserving almost half of his plays.
Today, six institutions in the United Kingdom and United States stand out as the main repositories of the pre-1642 quartos: the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford, the British Library, the University of Edinburgh Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, and the National Library of Scotland. Here you can view quartos separately or compare any two copies. The site reproduces at least one copy of each edition of William Shakespeare’s plays printed in quarto before the theatres closed in 1642.
#SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO FULL#
A cross-Atlantic collaboration has also produced an interactive interface for the detailed study of these geographically distant quartos, with full functionality for all thirty-two quarto copies of Hamlet held by participating institutions. The Shakespeare Quartos Archive is a digital collection of pre-1642 editions of William Shakespeare's plays.