Eric Rasmussen. The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
As reviewed by Ted Odenwald
A character in Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology observes that people thought him mad because his life goal was to memorize the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Shakespearean scholar makes a similar profession of lunacy regarding his decades’-long search for, examination of, and detailed cataloguing of copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio edition. The resulting Descriptive Catalogue…is an exhaustive, microscopic evaluation of every cover, bookplate, watermark, and marginalia –in short, every inch of each extant copy. The Shakespeare Thefts is a collection of stories concerning the challenges that Rasmussen and his team of investigators encountered in their efforts to publish that catalogue.
The First Folio is a cultural treasure—the first collection of all of Shakespeare’s plays, gathered by John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of the bard’s fellow actors. Were it not for this publication, several of Shakespeare’s previously unpublished plays would probably have been lost; the collection was also valuable in its providing definitive evidence of nature of the actual scripts used by their group: the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later called the King’s Men). So coveted are copies of this edition, that recently a single one was purchased for six million dollars. Locating extant copies was a challenge in itself, as many are privately owned—and the “chain” of ownership is occasionally obscured by unpublicized sales, an owner’s protective air of secrecy, thefts, recoveries, and bequests. Add to these difficulties the existence of forgeries, facsimilies, rebindings, and manuscript “cleansings,” one begins to understand the enormous challenges faced by Rasmussen and his team—and, perhaps, justification for the allegations of lunacy.
Rasmussen certainly considers his work rewarding, as he has accounted for 232 First Folio (hereafter, “FF”) copies. “Like a Shakespeare play, we uncovered a fascinating world between the covers of one of the world’s most expensive printed books, one populated with thieves, masterminds, foils, and eccentrics, all of whom have risked fortunes and reputations to possess a coveted [FF].” One such character was the Spanish ambassador to London in the early 17th-century, Count Gondomar. An avid book collector, he had acquired a FF copy in 1623, the year of its printing; he brought it back to Spain when hostility arose between the two countries. The known history of the copy ends here, though Rasmussen conjectures that the book would have been censored by the Spanish Inquisition (as it had done to other copies of Shakespeare’s work); or the book might have been sold to mercers to wrap their goods (as often happened to old books that had been reprinted in later editions). Or the work might have been burned to make room for other “more important books” in the aristocrat’s library. Interestingly, Rasmussen’s team traced the activities of a “bibliopirate,” known to have stolen from the Gondomar collection. There is a fair chance that this copy did re-emerge in 2008 in Cuba in the hands of one of Fidel Castro’s bodyguards; the copy had allegedly come to Cuba via Galicia.
In 2008, a British subject brought a damaged book to the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. , asking the scholars to substantiate his belief that this was a FF. Folger scholars were outraged: the book had been deliberately damaged to hide its origin; it had been “brutalized and mutilated.” But because of the careful cataloguing, it was determined that the copy had been stolen from the English University of Durham in 1998. Other thefts are discussed; in 1972, the Manchester University copy was stolen. The Earl of Pembroke had two copies go missing—accounted for in a 1635 inventory, but not in one in 1674. The Oxford University Bodleian Library copy was stolen, apparently ripped from a security chain; fortunately, this copy reappeared in the home of a rich family in 1905.
Several other unusual stories have surfaced as a result of Rasmussen’s research. In 1964 a humorous near-loss occurred when the Royal Shakespeare, in order to impress the Pope, showed off their FF; unfortunately, the Pontiff mistakenly thought that this was a gift, and after much awkward, red-faced negotiations, the copy was returned.. Sir Thomas Phillips, a “bibliomaniac,” had “coffins” built to protect each of his most valuable works, including a FF. Unfortunately, a notorious manuscript thief pilfered Phillip’s copy, leaving a shaved down copy of a much less valuable work. In 1881, when two Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Fisk Harris, perished in a freak boating accident, their FF went to the Providence, RI, bookseller who had sold it to them. He, in turn, allegedly sold this book secretly to the Astors. Rasmussen’s research also revealed that FF copies were owned by several individuals on both sides of the English Civil War. Several Puritans owned a copy of the FF—an interesting discovery, since the Puritan fathers of London had outlawed all plays as being immoral.
Rasmussen concludes that “…because of our research which has provided a fingerprint of the watermarks, manuscript marginalia, bookplates, and press variants unique to each copy—the surviving [FF] are now the most minutely studied published works in history.” The depth and the intensity of this research project may deservedly be called “madness,” but there was certainly an impressive amount of method in the efforts.
Ted Odenwald and his wife, Shirley have lived in Oakland for 40 years. He taught HS English at Glen Rock High School for all of those years plus one more. Now he is enjoying time spent with his family, singing in the North Jersey Chorus and quenching his wanderlust. Ted is also the Worship Leader at the Ramapo Valley Baptist Church in Oakland.