I looked into the publishing history of Shakespeare's sonnets in my post La Sonnet, so I decided to do some research on how Shakespeare's plays were published, and I surprised myself with what I found. The First Folio was made postmortem by John Heminges and Henry Condell. They compiled 36 of Shakespeare's plays as a sort of memorial to his life. I doubt they realized that had they not compiled The First Folio, 18 of Shakespeare's plays would be lost. This compilation holds the only record of Macbeth, Julius Ceasar, Twelfth Night, As You Like It and The Tempest. So thanks to Heminges and Condell, we get to read The Tempest.
Excerpt from The First Folio of Shakespeare plays in 1623 (marks added later).
2 comments:
Wow! That's so cool! I'd love to know where/how you did your research? How did you come across information on folio's of Shakespeare?
this is awesome! especially because i really like macbeth and twelfth night. score.
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