Shakespeare's First Folio on Display at the Vancouver Art Gallery

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UBC Library Communications

A rare literary masterpiece, William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, published in 1623 and often referred to as the First Folio, will be displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery from Jan. 15 to March 20.

The folio, recently gifted to the UBC Library, is a rare complete first edition published seven years after Shakespeare's death and credited with preserving many of his plays for posterity.

UBC acquired the folio, formerly owned by a private American collector, through Christie's New York, with funding from a consortium of donors across North America and Canadian Heritage. 

The opportunity to purchase a First Folio arose in early 2021, the gallery said. Its announcement did not mention the folio's value, but Christie's reports selling a copy of the folio for almost US$10 million on Oct. 14, 2020, a world auction record for any work of literature. Christie's did not identify the buyer.

The First Folio includes 36 of Shakespeare’s 38 known plays, edited by his close friends, fellow writers and actors. It is the first collection of his plays and the foundation of his enduring reputation. When Shakespeare died in 1616, only half his works had appeared in print. Eighteen plays – including The Tempest, Macbeth, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar – had not been previously published. 

The gallery said there are an estimated 235 copies of the folio worldwide, with another known Canadian copy in Toronto. 

“The First Folio is a cornerstone of English literature and with this donation, we are able to bring this cultural treasure into public ownership," said Katherine Kalsbeek, head of rare books and special collections at the UBC library. 

The folio will be displayed at the gallery with three subsequent 17th-century folio editions of Shakespeare's plays in a capsule exhibition titled For All Time: The Shakespeare First Folio. It's the first time the four folios have been displayed in Vancouver. 

The exhibit will be accompanied by an audio mobile guide featuring the voice of Christopher Gaze, the founding artistic director of the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. The gallery will launch a three-part webinar series, Contemporary Shakespeare, in collaboration with UBC and Bard on the Beach, focused on three of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies – King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra – all written in 1606 during an outbreak of the bubonic plague, when theatres were shuttered in England. 

Sources: Vancouver Art Gallery, Christie's