I have a friend with whom I argue about the sanctity of the book. She believes they need to be treated like the priceless spear carriers of culture that they are. While I, read them in the bath; turn down corners to mark my place; underline interesting phrases, mark paragraphs and commit other forms of libricide. (is there such a word?)
In my defense I note that I used to work at the Freud Museum, where they studied the marginalia in Freud’s Library to gain insight into his thought processes and influences.
But I recently came across the clincher to my ongoing argument in Charles Nicholls’ marvelous book on Shakespeare’s life as a lodger (‘The Lodger’) in Silver St. just down the road from the Guildhall in the City of London.
He quotes Shakespeare’s Cymberline where Iachino finds a book by Imogen’s bed and says:
‘She hath been reading late: The Tale of Tereus. Here, the leaf’s turn’d down.
Droeshout Portrait of Shakespeare from the First Folio
Four Hundred and One Years ago, on 8th November in 1623, the First Folio was registered at Stationer’s Hall near the publishing district around St Pauls Cathedral in London. It was actually called:
Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies
It was put together by his actor friends, John Heminge and Henry Condell seven years after his death, and they wanted to replace all the corrupt editions of his plays and poems that had been
“stol’n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors”.
The true texts of his plays and poems “are now offer’d to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them.” Wikipedia
In fact, the plays were ready early as they entered in to the catalogues for the Frankfurt Book festival to appear between April and October 1622,- and how amazing is it that, that festival is still the dream of any aspirant writer?
The First Folio offers plenty of proof that Shakespeare was the author of the plays. He left gold rings of remembrance to Heminge and Condell in his Will. They were part of his Players Company, and had worked together on many of the plays. The Folio has forewords by people extolling the virtues of the writer. Enough proof for any reasonable person.
Heminge and Condell are commemorated in the Garden of St Mary Aldermary behind the Guildhall, where they were Churchwardens, and not far from where Shakespeare was living in 1611. True friends.
St Mary Aldermany monument to Shakespeare, Heminge and Condell and the First Folio.
There was a wonderful BBC festival of Shakespeare on in 2023/24 to celebrate. Here:
International Intersex Day
Intersex Day of Remembrance, also known as Intersex Solidarity Day, is an internationally observed civil awareness day. (Wikipedia).
First Published November 2024, Intersex day added Feb 2025. To be completed November 2025
I went to New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the First Folio Exhibition on the anniversary of its publication in 1623. It was a very small exhibition, and, at first sight quite disappointing. Almost everything in it I had seen before. But, I came away quite excited, because it had a much better explanation of the Signet Ring than the one in its previous display.
In 1810 someone found this gold ring in field near the Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare was baptised and buried. It has a lover’s knot and the initials WS. It could ofcourse be anyone’s with those initials. But it certainly excited comment at the time as the display makes clear:
I did not know about the ring until New Place was refurbished a few years ago and the ring went on display. The new display gives more of an explanation as well as the delightful quotation above from Hayden to Keats.
Michael Wood suggested that Shakespeare might have lost the ring on the occassion of his daughter, Judith’s, marriage to Thomas Quiney in February 1616. Shakespeare made his Will a month later, and it is marked by three of his signatures. The Will says ‘whereof I have hereunto put my seale’. The word seale has been crossed out and the word ‘hand’ put in in its stead. So, he was intending to seale his approval of the Will, but changed his mind and put his signature instead? Why? Because he had recently lost his seal ring? Shakespeare died a month or so later.
Photo of the display photo of the Ring that maybe Shakespeare’s
Judith was the twin of Hamnet who died at age 11 and the Church has recently planted a couple of trees as a memorial to the twins, who are not buried, like their older sister, Suzanna, next to their mum and dad by the altar in the Church. Judith’s husband was a bit of a rogue, as he was called to the Bawdy Court and accused of debauchery with a local women who he made pregnant, and who died in childbirth. He is not mentioned in the Will.
But Shakespeare did leave money in his will to buy gold rings for his fellow actors, John Heminges and William Condell, who are buried in St Mary Aldermanbury in London. They outlived Shakespeare and collected his plays together in the First Folio. A Remembrance Ring is also in the display.
Handwritten notebook written in the 1620s full of quotations from the First Folio
The other main item in the display is this tiny 7.8 cm high notebook in which its unknown owner copied out his favourite quotes from the First Folio. It contains material from all 38 plays, and internal evidence shows it must have been made from the First Folio. It is about the size of the minature books the Brontes made. The tiny writing of the book must have been written with a quill from a small bird.
The display shows that a lot can be made of a few objects, if they are well chosen and with an excellent explanation.
By the way the rings and the Folio are clear evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays as his friends put together his plays in a volume with introductory information which makes it absolutely clear he wrote them. Also in the Church the memorial to Shakespeare compares him to King Nestor in judgement, Socrates in wisdom, and Virgil in art. Nothing can be clearer, and why people continue to say Shakespeare was simply an actor who copied out the plays is beyond me.
Pylium is a reference to King Nestor of Pylos. Maronem is Virgil. The last line means ‘The earth buries him’ the people mourns him, Olympus posesses him’.
Detail of photo from the American Viscountess showing a medlar (link to the site below:)
Medlars were a very common and useful fruit particularly in the Medieval and Early Modern period. They come out in December but can only be eaten when they are rotten and ‘bletted’. They also store well. They, therefore, provide a source of winter sweetness when there were few other fresh sources available.
They are from the Rosaceae family which includes apples, pears, rosehips and quinces. The English called them ‘open arses’ or ‘dog’s arses’ or ‘granny’s arses’ because of the way they looked until the more polite French name the Medlar caught on.
Shakespeare uses both words and uses their sexual connotations as they were thought also to look like female genitalia. A medlar was also a name for a prostitute. So in Romeo and Juliet this speech by Mercutio to Romeo and their mates contains some very bawdy thoughts:
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call medlars when they laugh alone. O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were An open-arse and thou a poppering pear!
RJ 2.1.33
I think you can also see how good Shakespeare was at making his allusions available to all classes. For the sophisticated he begins with the reference to the French medlar and in case the groundlings are missing out throws in the ‘open-arse’ so they know what he is alluding to.
Every Thursday (from Jan 7th 2021) at 6.30pm Exit 2 Bank Underground Station
A walk which explores the City of London that was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. By 1400 London was dominating the affairs of the Kingdom in spectacular fashion and had grown into a sophisticated medieval Capital, competing against the great capitals of Europe.
We will walk in the footsteps of Geffrey Chaucer, in the muddy City Streets, exploring the unhealthy conditions and poverty amidst great riches and pageantry. It was a cosmopolitan City with colonies of Italians, Germans, Dutch, and French who lived cheek by jowl with native Londoners.
By the 16th Century despite repeated visitations of plague, the huge influx of newcomers created non-stop growth in London. There was a corresponding increase in trade, in crime, in violence, and in creativity. There were riots against foreigners, riots against May Revels, and burnings at the stake of both protestants and catholics as society struggled to cope with the impact of religious change.
With so many young people drawn into the City to work in its expanding industries, entertainment grew more sophisticated and poets could make a living penning entertainments to the masses. The London landscape changed dramatically as new renaissance inspired architecture began to replace the medieval timber framed buildings and the old medieval monasteries were pulled down.
We explore London in one of its greatest periods of change. The walk is given alternately by Kevin Flude & Leo Heaton
