Sign In

Second Folio of Shakespeare's Plays

Early Female Ownership Inscription

The extraordinarily rare first issue of the 1632 Second Folio of Shakespeare's plays, with the iconic engraved title page portrait of Shakespeare by Droeshout. This example handsomely bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe in luxurious full honey-colored morocco. 

The Second Folio corrects some textual errors of the 1623 First Folio and is notable for containing the first appearance of John Milton in print, his anonymous "Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. Shakespeare," composed about two years before the publication of the Second Folio while he was still a student at Cambridge. Milton's poem appears on the same page as the eight-line “Upon the Effigies": 

What neede my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones,

The Labour of an Age, in piled stones

Or that his hallow'd Reliques should be hid

Under a starre-y pointing Pyramid?

Deare Sonne of Memory, great Heire of Fame,

What needst thou such dull witnesse of thy Name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thy selfe a lasting Monument:

For whil'st to th' shame of slow-endevouring Art

Thy easie numbers flow, and that each part,

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued Booke,

Those Delphicke Lines with deepe Impression tooke

Then thou our fancy of her selfe bereaving,

Dost make us Marble with too much conceiving,

And so Sepulcher'd in such pompe dost lie

That Kings for such a Tombe would wish to die.

The First Four Folios

The first four editions of Shakespeare's collected plays are known as the four folios. These were the only collected editions printed in the seventeenth century (a 1619 attempt at a collected edition in quarto form was never completed). The Second Folio, like the First Folio of 1623, contains 36 plays, all the plays that are considered to be wholly or in part by Shakespeare (with the exception of Pericles, which was added to the Third Folio edition of 1664).

The folios are incomparably the most important work in the English language - W. A. Jackson, Pforzheimer Catalogue.

The original 17th-century folios of Shakespeare, because of their incalculable impact on the language, thought and literature of our world, are the most desirable of all English language books, the shining prize of any collection.

The Shakespeare Folios "have an aura of book magic about them. For a bibliophile it is a volume devoutly to be wished for and rarely attained; to a library it is a crowning jewel of a collection... Shakespeare, indeed, is a name to conjure with. No lengthy explanations are needed; he is simply the most distinguished author in the English language" (Legacies of Genius, 36).

At first it might seem strange that the first collected edition of Shakespeare's works did not appear until seven years after his death, and that 17 of the 36 plays had never been published before (and might have been lost had the folios not been printed). But in the seventeenth century, plays were not routinely printed and often survived only in manuscript form. They were not considered "serious literature" in the sense that poetry was, so the publishing of a play was not likely to bring social prestige to the author, nor was there a great market for the published work; plays were to be performed and attended, not read. "Had Shakespeare not enjoyed the affection of his fellow actors his plays might not have survived. About three fourths of the prolific output of playwrights in his lifetime has disappeared. But Shakespeare's fellow actors, as a token of friendship to him, did us the great service of preserving the texts of his plays when they arranged the publication of the First Folio in 1623. What other playwright of that age was so well served by his fellows? The First Folio Shakespeare, the compilers explained, was published not for profit but 'only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare' (Boorstin).

Todd's Issue Points:

Second folio edition, first issue, Todd's imprint setting "A," State Ib ("to be sold at the signe of the Blacke Beare").

The typesetting of Milton's epitaph in the present example conforms to Todd's Ib, with corrections of spelling. This text was reset again in later issues of the Second Folio and provides the quickest way to distinguish the first issue from the later so-called remainder issues. The title page appears in variant issues, each naming one of the five booksellers who were shareholders in the publishing venture, all of whom held the copyright to one or more of the plays. This copy names Richard Allot, who had the largest share, and conforms to Todd's issue Ia.

For an exhaustive treatment of Second Folio issue points, described within the context of Elizabethan printing techniques, see William B. Todd, "The Issues and States of the Second Folio and Milton's Epitaph on Shakespeare," Studies in Bibliography, 5, 1952-53, pages 81-108:

The issues of this Folio are distinguished by three settings of the letterpress for A2.5 of the initial quire, a sheet containing on the recto (outer forme) of one leaf the title to the work, and on the recto (inner forme) of the other several commemorative verses on the author. Two of the three settings for the title also exist in a number of states, usually identified by alterations in the impressions for Robert Allot, one of the principal shareholders, or by the special imprints provided for his collaborators. Between the variants for both leaves there is an obvious correlation best described, in Smith's terminology, as: Allot 1 associated with Effigies A; Allot 2-3 with Effigies B; and Allot 4-5, Aspley, Hawkins, Meighen, and Smethwick, all with Effigies C.

The Droeshout portrait is here in Hind state III (as usual in the Second Folio).

Provenance: Owned by a Woman

The present example of the Second Folio is notable for having been owned by a woman, likely during the early 18th century. Evidence of this ownership in the form of an ink inscription on the verso of final leaf:

Mary Allen Her Boock an o domini god / In whatsoever station or relation or / as Sociation

Mary Allen has also inscribed her name on the verso of Leaf *1.

Above the main inscription is a Latin text, written in a similar hand:

luge tu, sileat ille, udamus nos, ite vos, anoliant illi, age tu, avrandant ille amicive nos saudeantus illi

Rarity

It is estimated that no more than 1000 copies of the Second Folio were printed, and it is believed less than 200 copies are still in existence today, many of which are incomplete or defective. The William Augustus White - Adrian Van Sinderen - Paul W. Henry copy of the Second Folio fetched $201,600 in 2022.