Get to Know the First Folio with ‘Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio’ by Dr. Chris Laoutaris
This month marks the 400th anniversary of the First Folio – the book that collected and preserved 36 of Shakespeare’s plays in a world-changing publication. If you’d like to learn more about this book, and the social networks and political upheavals behind its creation, then pick up Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio by Dr. Chris Laoutaris of The Shakespeare Institute.
“Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio charts, for the first time, the manufacture of the First Folio against a turbulent backdrop of seismic political events and international tensions that intersected with the lives of its creators. Shakespeare scholar Dr Chris Laoutaris uncovers the friendships, bonds, social ties and professional networks that facilitated the production of Shakespeare ’ s book, as well as the personal challenges, tragedies and dangers that threatened its completion. And he considers how Shakespeare himself, before his death, may have influenced the ways in which his own public identity would come to be enshrined in the First Folio, shaping the transmission of his legacy to future generations and determining how the world would remember him ‘not of an age, but for all time’.” (HarperCollins Publishers)
“Four centuries on from the publication of the First Folio comes a new work that chronicles, in its author’s words, “the story of, arguably, the world’s most influential secular book.” In “Shakespeare’s Book,” biographer, historian and Shakespeare scholar Chris Laoutaris tells how the Folio was put together, who produced it and what role the dramatist played in its creation. In doing so, he shows how Shakespeare was put on the literary map. For the Folio was, according to Mr. Laoutaris, “the book Shakespeare made, and the book that made Shakespeare … “Shakespeare’s Book” also shines a brilliant light on the tough text-related decisions Heminges and Condell made in order to publish the plays “perfect of their limbs” and “absolute in their numbers,” as Shakespeare conceived them. He also provides insight into the printing process and the “choreographed ballet” performed by inkers and pressworkers: “the strange cacophonous song of Shakespeare’s words translated into the symbiotic dance of human and machine.” The production of the book plays out against a bigger picture, a dramatic backdrop of tense Anglo-Spanish diplomacy and heady political turmoil.” Wall Street Journal
To order a copy of the book, click here. (Readers in the US/Canada can order a copy here). To hear interviews with author Chris Laoutaris, explore the links below
The Shakespeare Unlimited podcast for the Folger Shakespeare Library
HistoryHit TV's 'Not Just the Tudors' podcast with Prof Suzannah Lipscomb
Reduced Shakespeare Company podcast with Austin Tichenor
That Shakespeare Life podcast with Cassidy Cash
The book has been received with enthusiastic international acclaim:
In crafting this exquisite book, which takes the reader on an endlessly fascinating journey of discovery, Chris Laoutaris has achieved a labour of love on a par with the creation of the First Folio. The extensive, impeccable research has shed new light on a dazzling cast of characters and events drawn from the theatrical, social and political world of Jacobean England, as well as bringing the playwright himself vividly to life. Beautifully written and utterly compelling, this book comprises all the drama, intrigue and surprises of a Shakespeare play. A stunning achievement.
Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I and Elizabeth’s Women
This is Shakespearean scholarship at its best, brilliantly researched yet compulsively readable. It’s a book for our times, enduringly fascinating and appealing to both enthusiasts and the general reader. Highly recommended!
Alison Weir, New York Times bestselling author
Chris Laoutaris’s engaging account of how Shakespeare’s ‘First Folio’ was published 400 years ago… yields enjoyable detail…. The emphasis on the genius of Shakespeare can make you forget that his works have always been part of a curated publishing exercise. Laoutaris illustrates how the survival of Shakespeare is partly thanks to a carefully planned business strategy. As Heminges and Condell implored casual browsers, “What ever you do, Buy.”
Suzi Feay, Financial Times, Best Books of the Week
Intricately woven, vividly depicted and groundbreaking.
Dr Paul Edmondson of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, The Guardian
Chronicles the making of the First Folio and uncovers tantalising new traces of Shakespeare’s handiwork… [T]he story behind the First Folio has enough twists to fill out a five-act play. It has its own heroes, villains and political subtext… That story has finally been told in a new book by the scholar Chris Laoutaris. In Shakespeare’s Book, Laoutaris re-examines everything we thought we knew about the publication of the First Folio and uncovers some new information in the archives. Laoutaris’s book drops the reader into a vividly drawn Jacobean London and gives us fresh portraits of Shakespeare’s friends and colleagues as they take on the task of collecting his life’s work.
Michael Whitmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library
Shakespeare’s Book is a triumph. Scholarly, yet easy to read, it is a tremendous work of literary significance about how—against the odds—a few friends saved Shakespeare for the world.
Susan Ronald, Former Chief Executive of the British Shakespeare Association and author of The Pirate Queen
Shakespeare’s Book shines a brilliant light… Meticulously researched and compellingly conveyed, Shakespeare’s Book sits comfortably alongside the likes of Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World and James Shapiro’s 1599 as a Shakespeare study that manages to be edifying and entertaining in equal measure… Laoutaris brings vividly alive the many individuals involved in the Folio by way of illuminating potted biographies. His book as a whole is a richly informative account of what he calls ‘one of the most significant conservation projects in history.’
The Wall Street Journal
[A] masterful and engaging study.... impressively readable, written with pace and assurance... Shakespeares Book is sure to take its place among this century’s most valuable contributions to Shakespearean studies. By showcasing this unprecedented compilation, Laoutaris draws attention to the First Folio’s importance to our awareness and appreciation of the English language’s premier poet.
Washington Independent Review of Books
Like Shakespeare’s plays, Laoutaris’s book revolves around detailed interpersonal relationships. From his pages, you will learn about the lives of Heminges and Condell, the Folio’s main patrons, and many others, including Shakespeare’s friend and rival Ben Jonson and the various minor poets who offered praise of the book and its author… testify[ing] to the thoroughness of the author’s research.
Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
Shakespeare’s Book by Chris Laoutaris is a must read for anyone with even a slight passing fancy for Shakespeare… These characters come to life as the result of Laoutaris’ in-depth research into the backgrounds and politics of each. To say this is a book to be read and reread, and have a place on the library shelf, would be a major understatement.
New York Journal of Books
[Dr Laoutaris] embeds the processes of [the First Folio’s] creation into national and international politics… As he builds an enormous web of connections, Laoutaris is careful and convincing in showing the links that ramify outwards… Laoutaris’s argument for the shaping of [the First Folio] is imaginative and enticing… [W]hen [Shakespeare’s Book] is looking at those lives that were close to the creation of [the First Folio] it is informative and engaging.
Professor Peter Holland, The Times Literary Supplement
Laoutaris’s history of the interlinked careers behind the Folio scheme, brings that network to life… His resourceful sleuthing ties the Folio’s birth to the politics of its time.
The Economist
[A] significant offering… his mission is admirable: to trace every major step in the collective enterprise… to collate the Bard’s works for posterity… [T]he necessary drama is there…
Daily Telegraph
[A] brilliant new study of the Folio’s genesis … genuinely thrilling. Shakespeare’s Book offers both wonderful vignettes of Shakespeare’s world and tantalising solutions to long-standing mysteries. Laoutaris compellingly recreates the vital collaborations - and rivalries - behind the printing of ‘Shakespeare’s Book’.
The Tablet
The image of William Shakespeare as a learned poet for all ages may have originated from the Bard himself, to create a brand and establish his legacy, it has been revealed. The makers of the First Folio portrayed Shakespeare as part of an Oxford University clique… [and] research by Dr Chris Laoutaris… [has] shed light on the marketing technique.
The Times
[A]n immensely readable account… he unravels the historical events, the persons and lives, that contributed to the making of an iconic text. Particularly admirable is the way in which Laoutaris weaves incidental historical references to the Folio’s movers, makers and patrons… into a connected historical narrative, with its own sensational ups and downs, its crises and dangers. …[W]hat results is a fascinating and vibrant portrait of an age and a book, with its producers, its patrons, and above all its readers, to whom Heminges and Condell addressed their famous injunction: “Buy it first.”
Telegraph India
This is a monumental history of Shakespeare’s First Folio... This is a global history linked to parochial history, history felt upon the pulses... Hundreds of new facts appear in the book which is a traditional work of literary historical scholarship and none the worse for that... Chris Laoutaris is part of the new wave, finding new facts in multitudes.
Richard Clegg, Bookmunch
Shakespeare’s Book, a new history of the men who created the First Folio... Those seeking to learn more about the history of the First Folio could do no better than to read Laoutaris’s book: it is lively and impeccably researched.
Kate Maltby, Prospect Magazine
[T]his fascinating study celebrates the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio and reflects contemporary interest in the history of the book (the First Folio in particular)… This well-produced volume is … Highly recommended.
W. Baker, Professor Emeritus, Northern Illinois University, Choice Magazine
Author Biography
Dr Chris Laoutaris is a biographer, historian, poet, Shakespeare scholar and Associate Professor at The Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham), in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-Upon-Avon. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Book, published by HarperCollins’ William Collins imprint in the UK and Pegasus in the USA/Canada, which tells the story of the creation of the 1623 First Folio, and which was a Financial Times ‘Best Summer Read’ this year. In addition to numerous academic publications, he has published Shakespeare and the Countess: The Battle that Gave Birth to the Globe (Penguin UK and Pegasus USA/Canada), which was shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize for Biography, was an Observer Book of the Year, Telegraph Book of the Year, one of the New York Post’s ‘Must-Read Books’, and one of the Daily Telegraph’s top ten history holiday reads. Laoutaris is the recipient of the Morley Medal in English, two prestigious Post-Doctoral Fellowships (a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship and a Birmingham Fellowship), and his first poetry collection, Bleed and See (Broken Sleep Books), was shortlisted for the Eric Gregory Poetry Awards. He is the co-editor with Dr Paul Edmondson, Aaron Kent and Prof. Katherine Scheil of Anne-thology: Poems Re-Presenting Anne Shakespeare (Broken Sleep Books), the world’s first anthology of poems for Anne Shakespeare.
Laoutaris has reviewed for numerous academic publishers and journals; has written for the Financial Times, Sunday Express, Times Higher Education Supplement, BBC History Magazine, and the Times Literary Supplement, among others; and has provided historical and Shakespearean consultancy to the Royal Shakespeare Company and numerous film and documentary production companies. His media work includes BBC1’s The One Show, BBC4’s Front Row, BBC Midlands, BBC Radio London, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Newstalk Radio Dublin, RIK Television Cyprus, Notimex (Mexico’s largest media agency), a British Council/Evans Wolfe Media documentary with Ben Crystal, HistoryHit TV with Dan Snow, Not Just The Tudors with Suzannah Lipscomb, and the BBC Shakespeare Festival.
He is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Shakespeare Beyond Borders Alliance and the Co-Founder of the EQUALityShakespeare (EQUALS) initiative.