“This is as great a tribute from a biographer to his subject as I have ever read.“
Amanda Mecke
Henry (if I may), I first learned about you at Amherst College. Here you are with Emily at the 45th reunion of the class of 1879. I also attend my Amherst reunions.
Fig. 1. You and Emily in the reunion photo. Folger Shakespeare Library
You liked to sing at Amherst and so did I. We both sang bass. We would have been a pair; you were 5’4” and I’m 6’4”. Your canes had it all over our purple freshman beanies.
Fig. 2. Amherst Glee Club. You are in first row, second on left. Folger Shakespeare Library
An Amherst classmate, Israel T. Deys, described you as “quiet, reserved, and studious.” Emily put it, “a modest and unpretending man.” In 1930, which would become the year of your death, however, something was gnawing at you. You desired to be honored. You wondered about it “a great deal.” You wished a book to be written about you, a book of 550 pages, like the one you read on Herbert Putnam. If you will allow, Henry, you bear some responsibility. You insisted on keeping a low profile, keeping out of the news, whether you were buying books or property. You gave only one interview. You didn’t sign your cables “FOLGER.” You signed them “GOLFER.”
Fig. 3. Your Jan. 3, 1930 letter to Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam. Library of Congress
Eighty-four years after you died, Johns Hopkins University Press published Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger. It contained only 245 pages. The volume took its place on the shelves of the Folger Library gift shop.
Fig. 4. Signing books at Folger gift shop on Shakespeare’s Birthday
A member of Encore Chorale, I sang under the late J. Reilly Lewis’s baton in the oak stalls of the Cathedral’s Great Choir. One of the first copies of Collecting Shakespeare that I inscribed at the Folger gift shop was to Reilly Lewis who was attending a concert by the Folger Consort.
Fig. 5. Bach scholar the late J. Reilly Lewis at Great Organ of Washington National Cathedral. Photo by Abigail Wiebenson, dedicatee of Collecting Shakespeare
Above the fireplace (that was never lit) are etched in stone lines from Ralph Waldo Emerson you would recognize: “Not sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare’s wit.”
Fig. 6. Folger director Michael Witmore’s congratulations in the reading room. Photo by James R. Brantley
I think you would have been happy to learn that your biography was published by Johns Hopkins Press, the oldest university press in the country, founded when you were an Amherst student.
Fig. 7. Director of Johns Hopkins Press Barbara Kline Pope and Folger director in Great Hall. Photo by James R. Brantley
Your biographer has given 80 talks about you and Emily and your “gift to the nation” of the Folger Shakespeare Library. I’ll evoke seven of them for you.
Fig. 8. Talk at Cosmos Club introduced by Folger director emerita Gail Kern Paster
Every year you played golf and Emily took the baths at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia. When I was invited for a weekend, the management thoughtfully gave me your old room #527 on the ground floor.
Fig. 9. Poster for Folger Talk at Omni-Homestead, Hot Springs, VA
Omni-Homestead Talk
You summered in Glen Cove, NY on Long Island, where your house conveniently stood right across from the railroad station and the Nassau Country Club.
Fig. 10. Talk in Long Island’s North Shore Historical Museum
In honor of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, “The Folger” (as taxi drivers knew it) sent 18 of your 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio to all 50 American states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. How about that?
Fig. 11. On stage with Shakespeare Guild’s president, John Andrews OBE, at New Mexico Museum of Art
Steve Grant’s First Folio Tour
https://www.press.jhu.edu/newsroom/steve-grants-first-folio-tour
On the 9th floor of the San Diego Public Library next to a huge art gallery and an open-air patio, a First Folio lay open to the “To be or not to be” speech from Hamlet.
Fig. 12. Talk at San Diego Public Library and Shakespeare First Folio on Tour
At the Boston Athenaeum with a Folger grandniece and Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt in the hall, I project a photo of you as a toddler, Henry.
Fig. 13. You are holding with serious respect not a rattle, not a teddy bear, but a book
Boston Athenaeum Talk
https://vimeo.com/album/3310726/video/139975245
Whether a toddler or 65 years later, Henry, your grasp of the book with both hands is singularly the same. One of your personality traits was certainly consistency
Fig. 14. Henry Clay Folger young and old. Folger Shakespeare Library
A second trip to Boston was for a talk at the Somerset Club, down Beacon Hill from the Athenaeum. Henry, I traced your lineage back to Benjamin Franklin’s grandfather, Peter Folger.
Fig. 15. It was a privilege to be double-billed with Folger director, Michael Witmore
I was honored to address audiences in Edinburgh, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, and Stratford-upon-Avon on your creating a Shakespeare Library with Emily in Washington, DC. At Shakespeare Institute Stratford, Shakespeare scholars Sir Stanley Wells CBE and Paul Edmondson sat in the first row.
Fig. 16. Talk at Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, England
Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon Talk
When I addressed the audience in the Folger reading room on Shakespeare’s birthday, I could feel you looking over my shoulder, Henry.
Fig. 17. One of the speakers in the Folger reading room on Shakespeare’s Birthday. Photo by Bruce Guthrie
I am standing between the portraits of you and Emily in your resplendent Amherst and Vassar gown and hood. A few paces behind me lie two urns with your ashes.
Fig. 18. Author photo © Robert C. Lautman Photography, National Building Museum
Happy 165th Birthday, Henry!
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This is as great a tribute from a biographer to his subject as I have ever read.
Splendid Moving.
Thank you
This is absolutely fabulous. Your writing is superb. Thanks for sending this at the moment you did. Larry and I are anchored in the most beautiful cove in LaTrappe Creek off the Choptank River. It made my evening as we await sunset. SING ON!
WONDERFUL! Thank you!
What a nice thing to do, Steve!! Henry would be honored. I love that his name is an anagram for golfer (as he must have too). I never cease to be amazed by the Folgers’ vision for their library and I hope they would love what it will soon become.
I love your letter to Henry Folger! So creative. You are that, certainly.
What a lovely tribute to a far-sighted, “unpretending” man.
Thanks so much, Steve. I really enjoyed the photo-tour and the homage to Hank and Will. In an era of Musk and Trump, nice to hear about a plutocrat with public interests.
That was a lovely letter you wrote for Uncle Henry. Loved the pictures.
A lovely remembrance of this visionary man. Your idea of weaving the photos into a personal missive directed at Henry is so clever and effective. One of my favorite talks was the one you gave the docents in the Folger Theatre.
What a thoughtful and thorough tribute–although I would have expected nothing less from such a devoted biographer. Great job, Stephen!
Stephen, as Henry Folger himself wrote to Dr. Herbert Putnam of the Library of Congress in a 1930 letter, I now say to you: It certainly shows that you have led a very kindly and a very helpful life.
Very nicely done, Steve! He’d be happy!
What a lovely letter, Stephen!
Thank you Stephen. My apologies for not responding sooner. We’re in the midst of a $140 million renovation so I’ve been tied up in a lot of meetings. I did take a quick glance at the letter, which seems quite thorough! I’m sure Mr. Folger would be thrilled.
I love this letter. Henry would be proud of you.
Lovely!
This is terrific! Happy Birthday, Henry.
Thanks so much for sending me the birthday tribute–it was a wonderful treat.
Wonderful–thanks for sharing this letter. I’d love to see his reply!!!
Many thanks for sharing your wonderful, touching and creative letter.
I loved this birthday tribute. So personal and creative.
A tour de force of photo and event organizing!
Delighted your efforts continue to bear fruit. I am still inspired by the Folger story, and thanks to you even more.
What a fantastic article! It’s always so great to read your work on Henry. You do a fantastic job humanizing him.
This is a great tribute, in words and wonderful photographs, to a central figure in the growth of not only Shakespeare scholarship but early modern studies. The picture of the Library itself arouses such strong feelings of nostalgia for this almost sacred space! I long to return.