Shakespeare's First Folio, the first complete collection of his plays, was almost never printed. Its eventual publication went practically unnoticed, and many of the original 750 copies were gone before the turn of the eighteenth century. But a hundred years later the plays were rediscovered, beginning the long, surprising process that secured Shakespeare's legacy. Paul Collins follows this book's journey through the centuries, as it lies undiscovered for decades, burns, sinks, is bought and sold, and ultimately becomes untouchable. Paul Collins is an assistant professor of English at Portland State University and the author of Sixpence House, The Trouble with Tom, Not Even Wrong, and Banvard's Folly. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, The New York Times, and Slate. He edits the Collins Library imprint of McSweeney's Books and appears regularly on NPR's Weekend Edition as the show's resident literary detective. When Shakespeare's First Folio, the first complete collection of his plays, appeared in 1623, its publication went practically unnoticed. A few decades later, at the first recorded auction of the book, it failed to fetch even half its original cover price. Now, with only a few remaining, the First Folio has become the great white whale of rare books--a cornerstone of our cultural heritage and a connoisseur's dream.

Paul Collins, intrepid bibliophile, traces the First Folio's strange and marvelous journey through the centuries and across continents, as it is dusted off in attics, auctioned off for millions, sunk in oceans, consumed by fires, annotated, copied, and immortalized. The result is a brilliant history of one incomparable book. Collins has done it again. This history--spanning the globe and 400 years in the life and fortunes of one of the most famous books in the English language--is not the dry province of historians, bibliophiles, and antiquarians . . . Witty, detailed, and highly entertaining, it will be appreciated by fans of Shakespeare, history, or human folly.--Library Journal

Could you imagine a world without Macbeth or A Midsummer Night's Dream? If the answer is no, direct your thanks to John Heminge and Henry Condell, Elizabethan theater producers who assembled a posthumous compilation of the work of their friend and peer William Shakespeare after he died in 1616. Without their foresight, Shakespeare might have been remembered as 'just another industrious quill-scratcher, ' Collins writes in this lively and entertaining history of one of the most important books in English literature. Part antiquarian-book primer, part chronicle of literary curiosities, The Book of William is divided into five acts, each evoking a significant place and time in the First Folio's colorful history.--Megan Busky, The New York Times Book Review

An entertaining consideration arranged in five acts of the serendipitous social life the First Folio] has experienced over the four centuries of its existence . . . Writing in a style that is light and casual, Collins makes productive use of a vast body of Shakespeare scholarship.--Los Angeles Times

Collins' journey is that of a man stirred by ancient callings: Here is a tireless time traveler and researcher, focusing our attention on the beauty inherent in obscure and sacred objects.--San Francisco Chronicle

Paul Collins gives bookishness a good name . . . His] purpose here is] not to sing Shakespeare's praises (as if they still need to be sung), but to show, through the quintessential example, how much meaning we humans can invest in the printed word.--The Boston Globe

Collins knows his way around a good literary mystery, and knows how to milk the bizarre and wonderful detail . . . He] pours all of his] mountainous curiosity and good-hearted wit . . . into The Book of William . . . It would be easy to say that this is a book for bibliophiles, or theater lovers, and it is. But as far as what some of us want out of our summer reading--to get lost, to learn something, to laugh--we'd make the case for this.--Time Out Chicago

Highly engaging . . . If you previously imagined that the words 'page-turner' and 'Shakespeare' did not belong in the same sentence, this could be the book that changes your mind.--Christian Science Monitor

The First Folio's] 386-year history is perfect for Collins' peripatetic narrative style . . . Collins is pleasant company on these journeys through musty and scholarly byways.--The Oregonian

Smashing . . . Collins] is an enthusiastic and amusing writer . . . a good companion . . . an adept and committed bibliophile, and in the course of his journey into the history of the Folio's individual copies, he comes to a not-so-startling realization: books outlive even the greatest of us.--Palm Beach Post

Collins is the best sort of popular historian: someone who can make the obscurest facts and people absorbing and entertaining.--Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust

The intricate, improbable story of how the first collection of Shakespeare's plays (1623) became the holiest--i.e., most expensive--of grails in Biblioland. Collins comes well equipped for his peripatetic task. Having written about bibliomania and an iconic historical figure (Thomas Paine), the author also possesses a lively curiosity and, to the enlightenment of readers of this galloping, globetrotting romp, an impressive travel allowance. As the Folio publishers divided the Bard's plays into five acts, so too does Collins arrange his tale. Act One opens in a contemporary London auction room--a Folio sold for 2.5 million--but Collins soon returns to the 1620s to watch the surviving Globe colleagues of the recently deceased Shakespeare arrange with printer William Jaggard to print the 36 plays they have assembled--18 of which, Collins reminds us, didn't exist anywhere else. No Folio would mean no Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest or o