William Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, First Folio, London, 1623, Folger Shakespeare Library (review)

Along with the Gutenberg and King James Bibles, the First Folio of Shakespeare is one of the books most often reproduced in facsimile. The purchase of a First Folio, which combines, as the other two works do, scarcity with tremendous historical and scholarly importance, is obviously beyond the means of all but a select group, and few copies remain in private hands. Perhaps the greatest appeal of facsimiles of the First Folio is that they provide the average person with an opportunity to feel some small portion of the thrill of owning such a coveted prize. (For a complete survey of First Folio facsimiles, see volume 1 of Anthony James West's The Shakespeare First Folio: The History of the Book [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001].)

New facsimiles of the Folio have always followed the introduction of new technologies for reproduction, and now, inevitably, Octavo has brought the book into the digital age with its CD-ROM edition. The advantages of a digital facsimile are obvious: a compact disc weighs only a small fraction of the printed book and is far more portable. The images are taken from one of the best copies of the Folio in existence, out of the dozens that reside at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Furthermore, the complete text of the work is searchable word by word, and a brief comparison indicates that the electronic text in this edition has been meticulously transcribed. The disc also includes supporting materials documenting the history of the Folio in general and this copy in particular, among them Peter Blaney's excellent pamphlet, originally written to accompany a 1991 Folger Library exhibit.

That being said, it is difficult to imagine a great number of circumstances in which this facsimile could be put to much use. Technology has yet to overcome the fact that the experience of reading from a computer screen for any prolonged length of time is far less satisfying than that offered by the printed book. Each image encompasses a two-page opening, with the result that filling the computer screen with the image reduces the type to an illegibly small size, while enlarging the image to readability necessitates substantial scrolling. The scans of the pages, while of adequate resolution for normal reading, are insufficiently detailed for extremely close examination, such as that required for the analysis of repeated types. (Octavo does offer what it calls a research facsimile, offering higher resolution scans, but this occupies twenty discs at a cost of $1,250.00.)

It is true, however, that this digitized version would be easier to show to a group than a single printed book would be. Teachers of Shakespeare may find that sharing images of the First Folio with a class gives a context and immediacy to Shakespeare's life and work lacking in a standard textbook. Certainly, anyone needing to verify quotations from the First Folio would find the searchable text indispensable. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that anyone seeking simply to read Shakespeare will find themselves doing much of it in this format.