{"id":1031,"date":"2021-02-16T14:57:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/folio400.com\/?post_type=phernalia&p=1031"},"modified":"2021-06-04T14:25:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T13:25:52","slug":"first-folio-first-encounter","status":"publish","type":"phernalia","link":"https:\/\/folio400.com\/phernalia\/first-folio-first-encounter\/","title":{"rendered":"First Folio; first encounter."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
I studied and taught Shakespeare for 25 years before I finally got to touch a First Folio. I remember the day in 2018 when it arrived at Shakespeare\u2019s Globe, where I am Head of Research. It was the \u2018Munro\u2019 copy, one that we would put on display in our exhibition. It arrived in a box, wrapped in acid-free tissue paper. Our collections manager opened it gently. \u2018I don\u2019t have immaculate manuscript gloves,\u2019 I thought. This isn\u2019t just a book. I had seen many facsimiles of it and used them in my research. I had studied countless digital images and photographs of the First Folio, but this was the first time that it would meet my skin.<\/p>
I am an archival scholar. I have examined countless rare books and several manuscripts at the British Library, National Archives, the Huntington Library in California and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C., so why was I nervous about this<\/i> book? The first thing I did, oddly enough, was sniff it. I am not sure why but I think I wanted to smell the words. I remember as a child smelling all the books I read. I loved the odour of the inked paper; for me reading was such an olfactory pleasure. But mostly, I couldn\u2019t wait to hold the Folio in my hands and feel its textures between my fingertips, hear the faded sepia-coloured pages turn. All of a sudden, I felt insatiably greedy. I felt the urge to take it up and find a quiet spot to devour my favourite plays, as if reading them and digesting them from this copy would tell me something new, something I didn\u2019t already know perhaps.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t