The Shakespeare First Folio: A new worldwide census of first folios

by Anthony James West

2001 · Oxford University Press, USA

Existing copies of the Shakespeare First Folio (1623) were surveyed and counted a hundred years ago, in Sidney Lee's Census of 1902. Since then, some seventy copies have come to light, some of which are only now identified as First Folios. This new Census lists 229 copies, giving concise descriptions of each. The entries cover condition (including the number of original leaves), items of special interest, provenance, and binding. A concordance of Lee and West numbers is also provided. To set the stage, the volume tells the story of the search for copies and the detective work involved in dealing with doubtful identifications. Because Folios survive in such a wide variety of condition, the tests for defining what to count as a copy are described, then demonstrated with three unnumbered, unrecognized copies at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Finally, details of missing copies are given, to increase the likelihood of their rediscovery.

The Year of Lear

by James Shapiro

2016 · Simon and Schuster

"Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in England in 1606 affected Shakespeare and shaped the three great tragedies he wrote that year--King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn--King Lear--then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. It was a memorable year in England as well--and a grim one, in the aftermath of a terrorist plot conceived by a small group of Catholic gentry that had been uncovered at the last hour. The foiled Gunpowder Plot would have blown up the king and royal family along with the nation's political and religious leadership. The aborted plot renewed anti-Catholic sentiment and laid bare divisions in the kingdom. It was against this background that Shakespeare finished Lear, a play about a divided kingdom, then wrote a tragedy that turned on the murder of a Scottish king, Macbeth. He ended this astonishing year with a third masterpiece no less steeped in current events and concerns: Antony and Cleopatra. The Year of Lear sheds light on these three great tragedies by placing them in the context of their times, while also allowing us greater insight into how Shakespeare was personally touched by such events as a terrible outbreak of plague and growing religious divisions. For anyone interested in Shakespeare, this is an indispensable book"--

The Old Charges of British Freemasons

by William James Hughan

2025 · BoD – Books on Demand

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The Antigonos publishing house specialises in the publication of reprints of historical books. We make sure that these works are made available to the public in good condition in order to preserve their cultural heritage.