The Mysteries of the Shakespeare First Folio Lecture by Eric Rasmussen

The first edition of Shakespeare’s collected works, the First Folio, published in 1623, is one of the most valuable books in the world and has historically proven to be an attractive target for thieves. Of the 160 First Folios listed in a census of 1902, 14 were subsequently stolen-and only two of these were ever recovered.  In his efforts to catalog all these precious First Folios, renowned Shakespeare scholar Eric Rasmussen embarked on a riveting journey around the globe, involving run-ins with eccentric, reclusive billionaires and intense battles of wills with secretive librarians. We hear about Folios that were censored, the pages ripped out of them, about a volume that was marked in red paint — or is it blood? — and of yet another that has a bullet lodged in its pages. 

Eric Rasmussen, an award-winning author, editor, and scholar, has been called “the Robert Langdon of the Shakespearean world” by The Washington Post. Stories about his recent authentication of a newly-discovered Shakespeare First Folio in the north of France, featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Guardian, NPR, CNN, the BBC, and other media outlets, have received 12 billion page views from 323 million unique visitors to date.