Shakespeare Obsession: The Millionaire and the Bard by Andrea Mays

It was 11:00 pm and I was sitting up in bed reading, unable to put the book down, biting my fingernails in anxiety.

I was not reading a thriller. No character was in a life or death situation.

I had to laugh at myself. I was reading to see if Henry Folger's quest to purchase a rare Shakespeare First Folio was successful.

The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger's Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare's First Folio by Andrea Mays was an informative and interesting read. Mays "tells the miraculous and romantic story of the making of the First Folio, and of the American industrialist whose thrilling pursuit of the book became a lifelong obsession."

In Shakespeare's day plays were not published. The theater was about as well respected as network television is today. Paper was expensive and publishing was a long process. Plays were not 'set in stone' but adapted and altered and improved constantly. Without legal protection of intellectual rights a theater troupe's repertoire was jealously protected. Actors were given their lines, but no complete script circulated.

Shakespeare wrote plays for twenty years then returned to Stratford where he died in 1616. It was seven years after his death that his business partners in the theater, John Hemings and Henry Condell, gathered all of his work to publish thirty six plays--the First Folio. The book took years to print, one page at a time, 750 copies, and took nine years to sell out.

With each new publication of the Folios changes were made. Plays were added that were not by the Bard. Older folios were discarded, replaced by the new. The books ended up in personal libraries across Britain, often forgotten or unidentified.

One of the Gilded Age's nouveau riche industrialists was William Clay Folger, who worked with Standard Oil. He didn't make unlimited money like his employer John D. Rockerfeller. Folger and his wife Emily agreed in their early marriage to live frugally, keep their lives private, and to spend all their money on Henry's dream of building a world-class collection of Shakespeareana. Mays chronicles Folger's life long quest for all things Shakespeare with particular consideration on his First Folio acquisitions. He ended up with a third of the surviving, known First Folios. Folger was lambasted by the Brits for taking their native son's legacy out of country.

The Folgers put their collection away in warehouses across New York City, unseen for years, until in 1932 the Folger Shakespeare Library was built in Washington, D.C.

Mays points out that Folger is an example of hoarding 'done right'. The Folgers' ashes reside in the library along with their collection.

I enjoyed reading about Shakespeare's career, how books were published, the early collecting by Folger, and the building of the library. Because he bought so many First Folios it would get tedious reading about each sale, but the lesser important Folios are quickly noted. I also found interesting the viewpoint on the Standard Oil antitrust act and Ida Tarbell's journalistic attacks--a far cry from how things were perceived in The Bully Pulpit by Goodwin from the perspective of Teddy Roosevelt and the McClure's magazine staff.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Millionaire and the Bard
by Andrea Mays
Simon & Schuster
Publication May 12, 2015
ISBN: 9781439118238
$27.99 hard cover