The University of Oxford has launched a campaign to raise funds to digitize the first edition of William Shakespeare’s plays, known as First Folio dated 1623, to make it available on the Internet.
The First Folio was shown to Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan during his visit to Oxford in May last year. It is rarely brought out to be shown to visitors due to its worn condition.
Delicate restoration work has been carried out on its leather binding and other aspects. The campaign by the University’s Bodleian Library is called ‘Sprint for Shakespeare’
The project will involve the digitization of almost 1,000 pages and funds will also support work to stabilize the condition of the First Folio and protect the original for the future.
The First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, and the first collected edition of any English playwright, published seven years after his death by two of his fellow actors.
The Bodleian’s First Folio is unique in not having been rebound or restored in almost four centuries since it was first received by the library late in 1623.
The volume left the library in the 1660s and was returned after the exceptional response to a public fundraising campaign to buy it at the turn of the 20th century.
Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian said: “The Bodleian copy of the First Folio has a special place in the Library’s history.”
“Its pages are not only evidence of Shakespeare’s literary genius but are also a testimony of how the Bodleian built its collections over time, as the agreement with the Stationers’ Company enabled Oxford in 1623 to be the first university to ever hold Shakespeare’s First Folio, and the inspirational philanthropy showed by hundreds of people”.
Oxford University Professor Jonathan Bate added, “The Shakespeare First Folio is the most important secular book in the history of the western world. The digitization of the Bodleian copy, with its strange and eventful history, is a great project.”