Henry Folger, Folio Hunter: The Transatlantic Trade in Shakespeareana, c. 1900-1929

In early twentieth-century America, ownership of all four Shakespeare folios was a benchmark for rare-book collectors, demonstrating a dedication to assembling an exceptional library. The First Folio (1623) typically commanded the highest prices, depending on the condition of the individual copy. For most collectors, one First Folio was enough, but the American oil executive Henry Folger became obsessed with obtaining material associated with Shakespeare, purchasing about eighty copies of the First Folio. Although acquiring such cultural treasures was generally framed as enriching the nation, Folger’s attempt to compete with the Bodleian Library for a First Folio in 1906 drew criticism from the press on both sides of the Atlantic. Not all collectors were willing to sell to Folger, who may have tried to buy one of the copies now in Senate House Library. However, Folger’s passion meant that British booksellers could be confident that copies of the folios would always find a buyer, helping to keep the market buoyant. Dealers capitalised on the popularity of Shakespeare’s works by labelling a wide range of material related to Shakespeare as “Shakespeareana”, and the 1920s saw a boom in the market for early English plays. Early editions of works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries published in smaller (quarto) format survived in much smaller numbers than the folios and, having helped keep prices high for folios, here Folger struggled to compete against richer American collectors. Focusing on Folger, this lecture will explore the workings of the trade in rare books in the early twentieth century to explain why large numbers of sixteenth-century English plays are now held in a handful of American libraries.  

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