COLLECTING SHAKESPEARE:

The Story of Henry and Emily Folger

Dual biography of Emily (1858–1936) and Henry (1857–1930) Folger, founders of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

“Grant provides not just a biography of the ‘onlie begetters’ of this astonishing library, but also an account of the worlds in which the Folgers lived. The result is a superlative book . . . Crisply written and packed with facts and anecdotes.”

Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

No one had ever written a biography of the founders of the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, Henry Clay Folger and Emily Jordan Folger. And when the Library was dedicated on Shakespeare’s 368th birthday, April 23, 1932, the guest list brought together the largest cultural gathering ever held in Washington DC, according to a local press report.

Johns Hopkins University Press released Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger on the Ides of March, 2014, 450 years after the Bard’s birth. In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of the Folgers of Brooklyn, a reserved Victorian couple devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug.

The book devotes one chapter to how Folger made his fortune––as right hand-man to John D. Rockefeller Sr. at Standard Oil Company. The others describe in detail from primary sources how the Folgers through a unique formula of teamwork assembled the largest collection of Shakespeare objects in the world. Emily earned a master’s degree in Shakespeare Studies at Vassar College in 1896, a year when only 250 women in the country attained this academic level. Henry graduated in 1879 from Amherst College, whom he would name in his will to administer the private research library 340 miles to the southwest.

The library’s 82 First Folios are its crown jewels: the 1623 compilation of 36 Shakespeare plays in their earliest editions. It is the sole source for half of the Bard’s dramatic production. The Folger houses 275,000 books and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in the Nation’s Capital for cultural programs including theatre, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings.

Henry and Emily Folger lived their lives below the radar. They granted only one interview, in which they lied as to the number of First Folios they had “secured.” Folger berated book sellers who divulged what he had paid for Shakespeare treasures. He was sure prices for his coveted gems would skyrocket. His boss cornered him one day on the golf green. “Henry, I see from the papers that you just paid $100,000 for a book.” Folger replied to Rockefeller, “Now, John, you know better than anybody else how newspapers exaggerate.”

The sad irony was that Folger never saw a single stone of his library in place. He was never able to admire his books, paintings, and other treasures on public display. Shortly after the cornerstone was laid, Henry Folger died of “adenoma of prostate and a post-operatory pulmonary embolism.” Emily bravely soldiered on, as the Folger Shakespeare Library opened its doors and began its trajectory toward become the world-class institution it is today.

Grant, Stephen H., Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023. 264 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-4809-1. Prologue, 34 image, 5 tables, Epilogue, 446 notes.

BUY THIS BOOK

“A superlative book, one that ranges from Amherst College in the 19th century to the gilded age of Standard Oil to the glory days of high-end book collecting. Crisply written and packed with facts and anecdotes, Collecting Shakespeare would be better only if its type size were just a bit larger.”
– Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“This charming and compelling tale of a literary obsession brings the Folgers back to life and serves as an important reminder of the incredibly rare and rich resources that lie hidden in the Folger Shakespeare Library.”
– Debby Applegate, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher

“Stephen H. Grant tells the story of the Folgers’ joint obsession clearly and efficiently; the illustrations he reproduces are particularly engaging … Shakespeareans, book collectors and all who have worked at the Library and who love and admire it will enjoy Collecting Shakespeare.”
– H.R. Woudhuysen, Times Literary Supplement

“This first biography of Emily Jordan Folger and Henry C. Folger… taps hitherto neglected resources to trace their joint obsession with collecting Shakespeare.”
– Choice

“This book will fill a major gap in our understanding of how one of America’s most influential institutions came to be, and it will be welcomed by what the 1623 Folio describes as a ‘great Variety of Readers.”
– John F. Andrews, President, The Shakespeare Guild

“In this thoroughly documented and illuminatingly illustrated joint biography, Stephen Grant makes a fascinating contribution to the intellectual and cultural history of their time.”
– Stanley Wells, CBE, Honorary President, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon

“The fascinating story of these two Shakespeare-loving Americans and the great rare-book library they founded … will be welcomed by lovers of Shakespeare, students of twentieth-century American culture, and early English printed books alike.”
– Gail Kern Paster, Director Emerita, Folger Shakespeare Library

“In his assiduous yet accessible Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger, Stephen H. Grant offers a thorough account of the lives, collecting practices, and philanthropic goals of this austere, dedicated couple.[He] manages to show how these passionate Shakespeareans, working together without curators or advisors, competed effectively against far wealthier collectors.”
– Werner Gundersheimer, Director Emeritus, Folger Shakespeare Library, American Scholar

“This thoroughly researched and accessibly written book is first of all a fascinating biography of how a man and his wife devoted their lives to gathering the world’s largest collection of the original folios of William Shakespeare, plus a range of literature from as early as 1500. It is also a meditation on why some museums endure and thrive, while others lapse into confusion and decay.”
– James Srodes, Washington Times

“This is a story that Stephen H. Grant tells us in his thoroughly researched, comprehensive, lucid, and amply illustrated book.”
– Alden Vaughan, Shakespeare Quarterly

“Grant’s text is indeed well-researched and written, in a snappish and easily-readable style, even though there are many details.”
– Jeffery Moser, Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature

“While Collecting Shakespeare is biography intertwined with technicalities of antiquarian book and artifact collecting, it undoubtedly belongs on the Shakespeare lover’s bookshelf.”
– Felicia Hardison Londre, Theatre Journal

“An engrossing read. . . Grant has written an illuminating book that artfully places Henry and Emily Folger in their own time while showing how they helped to shape the scholarship of ours.”
– Zachary Lesser, Renaissance Quarterly

“James Waldo Fawcett, a Washington journalist who knew the Folgers and planned and abandoned a biography of Henry, said theirs ‘was an authentic romance without recorded parallel in the history of American philanthropic idealism.’ Stephen Grant has done a superb job of telling their peculiar story.”
– Charles Trueheart, Weekly Standard

“I thoroughly enjoyed reading your book and could only wish that Uncle Henry and Aunt Emily had been less private. You even managed to make the ins and outs of finance and the complicated world of book collecting both comprehensible and interesting.”
– Folger Cleaveland

“You gave us all new insights into the Folgers. I know that many of us will be revising our own talks to visitors based on what we learned from you.”
– Louise Wheatley, Folger Docent

COLLECTING SHAKESPEARE: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger

Book Talks by Stephen H. Grant