799 Emma Smith and Shakespeare's First Folio (Revisited)

In this revisited episode of The History of Literature, host Jack Wilson sits down with Professor Emma Smith of Oxford University to explore the legacy and significance of Shakespeare's First Folio, published in 1623—four centuries ago. The conversation delves into the folio’s origins as a collaborative effort between Shakespeare’s fellow actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, and London publishers Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blunt. Smith emphasizes how the folio preserved 18 plays that would otherwise have been lost, including Macbeth, The Tempest, and Julius Caesar, and how it transformed Shakespeare’s works from ephemeral stage scripts into enduring literary texts. She discusses the folio’s physical form—its size, weight, and serious appearance—as a deliberate signal of scholarly value, marking a pivotal moment in the separation of theater from literature. The episode also unpacks the challenges of textual authenticity, including the fact that the folio was not proofread uniformly, with corrections made mid-printing, and that some plays were excluded due to rights disputes or authorship ambiguity. Smith reflects on the folio’s journey from a practical, secondhand book to a revered collector’s item, and shares her deep appreciation for the personal annotations and marginalia found in surviving copies, which reveal how readers engaged with Shakespeare over centuries. Finally, she reflects on the emotional and intellectual value of owning the original folio over modern editions, despite its impracticality for performance or study.