Mount Stuart is working with academics from universities including Glasgow, Dundee, Stirling and Oxford to study the collections and explain their significance to visitors to Bute and the wider public. The collection was put together over 600 years and includes landmark works of British portraiture from the 18th and 19th centuries, Italian masterpieces from the 16th century, and Dutch and Flemish Old Masters. The Folio is believed to be only the first of many significant discoveries in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart. I hope this anniversary year encourages people to reread the texts of his work.' But the written word and the First Folio is central to our understanding of Shakespeare. 'When we think about Shakespeare, we usually think about his plays being performed on stage. 'My book aims to apportion credit for Shakespeare's legacy more widely and to note that without the people who edited, printed, and read the book in 1623, we would not be celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death this year. 'Shakespeare would have looked very different, and his legacy would have been very different, had the Folio not been published. 'The real importance of the First Folio is that, without it, we would not have half of Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, The Tempest and As You Like It,' said Professor Smith. In her book, she investigates the events leading up to the publication of the First Folio, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. This month, Professor Smith has also published S hakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book with Oxford University Press. The Reed-Bute Folio is in three volumes – comedies, histories and tragedies – and was rebound in goatskin in 1932 to match the other three Bute Folios. In fact, a note in the house’s archives show that the 3rd Marquess of Bute thought the sum for which it sold in 1807 was ‘too dear’ so perhaps the family found the price more reasonable when the book came onto the market later in the 19th century.' 'But we know that Mount Stuart acquired the Folio at some point in this period because it is mentioned in a catalogue of the Bute library in 1896. 'After that the trail of the Folio goes cold as there are no further public records of its existence and it was omitted from Sidney Lee's 1906 census of First Folios.
'A letter from Reed shows that he acquired the Folio in 1786, and records show that it was sold shortly after Reed’s death in 1807 to a ‘JW’ for £38. 'This First Folio belonged to Isaac Reed, a serious and well-connected literary editor who had an extensive library. 'It is an unusual Folio because it is bound in three volumes and has lots of spare blank pages which would have been used for illustrations. She added: 'This is an exciting discovery because we didn’t know it existed and it was owned by someone who edited Shakespeare in the 18th Century.' It was a really exciting moment, I find First Folios to be such charismatic books.' 'But when I went up to investigate, I could see from the watermarks and the idiosyncracies of the text that it was genuine. 'When the team at Mount Stuart first told me they thought they had a First Folio, I must admit I thought "yeah, sure, and so do I!",' said Professor Smith. Around 230 First Folios are known to survive and it is one of the most valuable books in the world. The First Folio is the name given to the collection of William Shakespeare’s 36 plays published in 1623. Professor Smith has identified the Folio as the working copy that formerly belonged to Isaac Reed, a well-connected literary editor working in London in the 18th century. It is the only Folio to be displayed this year that has not previously been seen by the public.
The Folio can be viewed by the public at Mount Stuart in a special display which will run from today until 30 October. All digital tickets come with a 72-hour viewing link starting the morning after the event.Today's announcement comes nearly 400 years after Shakespeare died, on April 23 1616. Purchase a ticket via the Australian Digital Concert Hall website and tune in at 6.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday 30 March to watch the event as it happens. We are thrilled to announce that A Celebration of the First Folio will be live streamed via Australian Digital Concert Hall. Please note our live event is now SOLD OUT.
Featuring performances by Bell Shakespeare actors.
Join Melbourne University scholar David McInnis for a fascinating journey through the book that gave us Shakespeare. This book included 18 plays that had never been printed before, plays like Macbeth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and The Tempest that would otherwise have been lost forever. They called it Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies: Published According to the True Original Copies. In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, his friends decided to compile his plays into a single volume.
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