Th e John Rylands University Library Folio (30)

Books  This another folio I've seen in person, back in April 2016 on one of its rare outings on display in the historic wing of my old university library.  I remember it being quite low in the case, presumably so as not to disrupt the various items which were already on more permanent exhibition.

Earlier than that, back in 2007, it featured in Othello Retold, part of the Blast TV strand which showed young people being given the opportunity to participate in a cultural event in this case 50 young Manchester-based MCs, musicians, dancers and visual artists script and perform a version of the play in conjunction with the rapper Akala (other segments included work experience at 1Xtra, making some short films and a competition to create a fashion show).  It was broadcast at 5am in the morning, presumably so that schools could set their video recorder.

In the segment, a group of the participating kids are shown the John Rylands Library and then introduced to two volumes, a quarto of Sonnets and the First Folio, which has been opened on the first page of Othello.  As with the rest of the programme, the tone is about bridging the gap between the apparently elitist Shakespeare and more contemporary art forms, how libraries such as this should be accessible to everyone (although the voiceover indicates that only the librarian is allowed to touch the book).  

The Shakespeare First Folio's concordance tells us that a manuscript note found inside the volume indicates this is the copy Lewis Theobald used for his edition of the plays (published across several volumes), although as the text notes "there is no other evidence to connect Theobald to this copy".  From there, it passed through some really significant hands, starting with Martin Folkes, President of the Royal Society and it was then sold at auction to Dr John Monroe, the "physician at Bethlem Hospital who was brought in to consult on George III’s first bout of madness in the late 1780s.

On his death, he passed it the foundational scholar George Steevens with whom he'd worked on their own edition of Shakespeare (posthumous edition viewable here).  Then when Steevens died it was passed to George John Spencer, 2nd Earl of Spencer and sat in the library at Althorp until 1892 when John Poyntz Spencer, at around the time he became first lord of the admiralty (Lady Di's ancestor), who sold it to Mrs John Rylands the founder of the library which was built in memory of her husband the cotton merchant.  The Folio has been ever since with a slight change in ownership in 1972 when the library was merged into Manchester University.

But up until 1972 the university library had another edition in its collection.  In a blog entry from earlier this year, James Peters explains that on the 12th and 13th of July that year, a week before the University became trustees of the John Rylands, someone broke into the main library at night, an exhibition case was broken and the volume was stolen.  Despite an extensive search over many years it has never been recovered but there's enough information about it to warrant a complete entry in the Rasmussen book and a number, 218.