Shakespeare’s First Folio

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2023 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and Chris Laoutaris, the author of Shakespeare’s Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare, discusses his fascinating and readable account of the many people and factors that went into its creation. Chris shares how he became an expert in multiple disciplines just to write the human story behind what Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune called “one of the most crucial cultural acts in the history of Western civilization;” pushes back against the conventional wisdom that Heminges and Condell were the only ones responsible for the First Folio; whether The Winters’ Tale is somehow a tribute to Anne Shakespeare; his use of extended tree metaphors; how putting together a Folio takes a village; the many and varied historical synchronicities; how Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will (a fictional treatment of the same material) compares with what really happened; and how the First Folio is mostly responsible for the Shakespeare Industrial Complex we toil in today. (Length 21:40)

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